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More Class Warfare
You may have read the editorial in the latest Dispatcher by James
Spinosa, ILWU International President regarding the new European assault on
longshore unions. If not, we wish to bring it to your serious attention.
His opening paragraph sounds a warning:
"The
decades-long war by ship owners on dock workers and their unions keeps erupting
on different fronts around the world. And as the conflict rages on, we see more
and more clearly the ties between governments and multi-national
corporations."
What Spinosa is referring to is a proposed new law being considered by
the European congress that would assign all cargo handling at dockside to ships'
crews. The law also proposes that dockside workers needed to supplement would be
hired as casuals - in the name of "free market competition."
Spinosa
further states:
"Knowing these lessons {of last years negotiations} we can see where
the European port Directive points. If the employers get away with gutting
European dockers' contracts, it wont be long before union longshore contracts in
the U.S. and elsewhere will be declared "monopolistic" and
international pressure will build to get rid of these "uncompetitive"
practices. We will soon find ourselves in the line of fire
again."
GOOD NEWS! - After the above article in the last
Dispatcher, the vote on the EU anti-longshore proposed law called the
"European Directive on Port Services," was voted down in the EU
congress by a vote of 229 against and 209 for.
"This is the most historic victory for dock workers ever in Europe
and maybe the world," said Nick Stam, coordinator
for the Dutch dockers' union FNV Bondgenoten and a member of the ITF's Dockers'
Steering Committee. "Never has one group of workers in the history of
Europe been victorious against the bureaucracy of politicians and Capital. To my
brothers and sisters in the ILWU say 'An injury to one is an injury to all.'
ILWU President Spinosa warned that the victory is
not final and that ship owners and other corporate powers will continue to try
to bust docker unions in other ways. "We must stay vigilant and extend our
international solidarity," Spinosa said.
The above
longshore victory counts as number two with our victory in our new contract.
Number three will be the defeat of Bush in 2004.
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