Victory to the Charleston Longshoremen!
February
27, 2000
For the first time since the January 20
police riot against protesting Charleston dockworkers, ILA Local 1422 members
picketed a scab Nordana ship, the M/V Stjernborg. This time, on February 24,
they were joined on the picket line by representatives of International
Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, its President Lawrence Thibeaux and
Executive Board member Jack Heyman, at the Columbus Street Terminal. Confronted
again by a massive display of police force, the picketers limited to 19 by a
court injunction marched and chanted defiantly, "ILA!, ILA! ILA!" and
"Ain't no power like the power of the union, 'cause the power of the union
won't stop!"
The South Carolina States Port Authority had delayed the ship's
arrival for fear that union longshoremen and checkers would try to stop the scab
loading operation by nonunion Winyah Stevedoring or it would interfere with the
dock operations of other larger ships in port.
Solidarity
Can Defeat Union-busting!
ILWU Local 10, along with the other ILWU locals in
Northern California, the Liverpool dockers and the Coordinadora Dockworkers
Union of Spain had responded to ILA Local 1422 president Kenneth Riley's appeal
for support. At a Local 1422 press conference the previous day President
Thibeaux presented a check from Local 10 for $5,000 to the Dockworkers
Defense Fund to assist in the legal battle of the Charleston longshoremen,
clerks and maintenance workers. At the rally on the picket line Heyman was
roundly applauded when he said that West Coast longshoremen stand solidly with
the embattled Charleston longshoremen. These acts of solidarity clearly
heartened the rank and file longshore workers.
The ILA had a signed collective bargaining agreement with Nordana,
a Danish shipping line, until last year when the shipping line paid its unfunded
liability in pension and welfare contributions, broke the contract and started
using nonunion Winyah Stevedoring. In 1989, when a scab stevedoring outfit
tried to start up in Wilmington, North Carolina just across the border it was
met by hundreds of protesting longshoremen from South Atlantic ports. Unfortunately,
scab operations have hit the ILA hard in the so-called "right-to-work"
South. Reportedly, the port of New Orleans has 50% nonunion longshore
operations, while Houston is 80% nonunion!
The increased globalization of the economy can be seen in the
international amalgamation of shipowners (Maersk and Sealand, OOCL and APL) and
the establishment of global shipping alliances. Waterfront unions located
at the critical point of international transportation have been targeted by
governments and employers as restraints against their policies of "free
trade".
The successful anti-union attacks on dockworkers in Britain, Australia,
Mexico, Holland and Brazil have whetted their appetites for more. Now the
waters are being tested in Charleston, South Carolina. Apparently, the ILA
leadership has deemed this attack a "local" problem.
The
Real Story Behind the Charleston Police Riot
Longshore action on January 2 forced a Nordana ship to leave the
port of Charleston with 25 boxes and heavy equipment still on the dock and
unloaded by the scab Winyah Stevedoring company. When the M/V Skodsborg
arrived on January 20, the state provocatively mobilized a massive display of
police power-- several hundred riot police (SWAT and SLED) and local police,
tanks, armored cars, helicopters, concussion grenades, shotguns, dogs and tear
gas-- all in an effort to intimidate and repress longshore workers from
demonstrating. Police saber rattling had already begun before the midnight
picketing when the longshore union was informed that police were amassing riot
gear and clearing out the county and city jails. It didn't stop the courageous
longshoremen and clerks.
As hundreds of union picketers approached the phalanx of police in
riot gear, one cop lunged forward with his club. A longshoreman pulled the
cop's club and both tumbled to the ground. Immediately a swarm of cops
jumped and beat the beleaguered longshoreman. A melee ensued. Local
union officials intervened to try to quell their members. When President
Kenneth Riley, who had been facing the longshoremen with his back to the cops,
turned to the police to ask their restraint, he was clubbed over the head.
Seeing the blood streaming down the face of their president, Local 1422
members justifiably flew into a rage. One longshoreman confronted by a state
trooper pointing the barrel of a shotgun at him, bared his chest and cried out
"Pull the trigger, 'cause we ain't gonna stop fightin' for our jobs!"
The trooper declined to fire rather than create a martyr for the struggle.
Another picketer was struck by a police car careening into the
demonstrators and landed on top of the vehicle. Ten were hospitalized.
Eight longshore workers were initially arrested for trespassing.
The charges were later increased to "rioting and conspiracy". The
judge dismissed the charges once he realized that the first several
minutes of the police video were suspiciously edited out. Four ILA men
have now been indicted by anti-labor, anti-black and pro-cop South Carolina
Attorney General Condon. The African American newspaper of Charleston in
its February 23 issue ran a banner headline: "ILA, Cops Melee Planned By
Cops?", while the viciously anti-union Post and Courier (whose front page
photo helped frame a longshoreman) pontificated in an editorial (January 21)
"Labor violence on Charleston's waterfront must not be rewarded."
Unions internationally must come to the aid of our black and white
brothers and sisters!
They're being railroaded by a racist, anti-union Attorney General with
ambitions to run for governor on a "right-to-work" and
"states rights" platform. Simultaneously, the longshore unions
are under attack politically in the state legislature. Attempts are being
made to tighten the "right-to-work" law to make it more difficult for
unions to collect dues or fees and also ban union members from positions on the
State Ports Authority Board.
Labor
Unity and the Fight Against Racism
A few days before the dock clash on January 20, forty members of
ILA Local 1422 with their union banner traveled to Columbia to
participate in a mass protest against the battle flag of the Confederacy, the
symbol of slavery, being flown over the state capitol building. The port of
Charleston is also a tourist mecca. It showcases beautiful palm tree-lined
streets and magnificently restored colonial buildings, including its old slave
market where the ancestors of today's longshoremen were shamefully bought and
sold like cattle. It took a civil war to end slavery. Then, in
1867, black dockworkers in Charleston formed the first labor organization
of freed slaves, the Longshoremen's Protective Union Association, and won a
strike for higher wages.
The first shot in the Civil War was fired in Charleston at Fort Sumter,
then under control of the Union army. Ironically, it is once again in the
port of Charleston where the class war-- to defend unions and the decent living
standards and working conditions they provide-- is being fought. Victory
to the Charleston longshoremen!
To help the Charleston longshoremen in their legal battle please
send your contribution to:
Dockworkers
Defense Fund
c/o
Robert J. Ford, Treasurer of the Fund
910
Morrison Drive
Charleston,
South Carolina 29403
Jack Heyman #8780
ILWU Local 10
San Francisco, California