Struggle of the Charleston 5 Seems to Energize Labor Unions
by Jack Heyman

THERE hasn't been much to cheer about lately for the labor movement in the United States. The unionized work force has remained stagnant at about 13 percent of the total for the last decade or so, a steady decline from its high of 33 percent 50 years ago.

But labor's fortune may be changing, ironically because of a labor struggle taking place in South Carolina, a citadel of anti-unionism. State Attorney General Charlie Condon -- like South Carolina's political dinosaur Senator Strom Thurmond, once a Dixiecrat and now a right-wing Republican -- has targeted the longshore unions in the port of Charleston.

In January of last year, 150 longshore workers picketed a ship owned by the Danish Nordana Lines when it stopped using a union-contracted stevedoring operation and went nonunion.

The pickets marched from their union hall to the adjacent pier, but were confronted by 600 riot-equipped police mobilized from throughout the state. When police bloodily clubbed longshore union president Ken Riley on the head, a melee ensued. Any fair media coverage would have shown unarmed workers carrying picket signs defending themselves against an overwhelming, militarized police force.

Not so in South Carolina, where the Confederate flag, representing the heritage of slavery, still flies at the state capitol. There, black and white workers united in exercising their First Amendment rights to demonstrate are portrayed as thugs. And worse, five longshore workers, four from the predominantly-black longshore union,

IDA Local 1422, and one from the all-white checkers' union, ILA Local 1771, have been charged with inciting to riot. They face up to five years in jail. Furthermore, W.S.I, the nonunion stevedore company that usurped the union's work, is now suing the locals and 27 of their members for $1.5 million dollars for loss of revenue when Nordana signed a union contract.

Defying state oppression has emboldened other workers in South Carolina to stand up for their rights. Under the reform leadership of Riley, Local 1422 has successfully organized port truck drivers, crane operators who are state employees and even won a union representation election at W.S.I. It's precisely this kind of dynamism that can be a catalyst for organizing the South, historically a formidable task for the labor movement.

And a nationwide defense campaign for the Charleston 5 has been gaining momentum, linking the labor movement with black organizations and civil liberties groups. It began here in San Francisco when ILWU Local 10, the longshore union, outraged by the police riot and victimization of the picketers, immediately sent two members to join the Charleston picket line in solidarity.

Since then, defense committees, at the urging of AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, have been set up in cities around the country to demand the charges be dropped, to raise money for legal expenses and to organize for an international day of protest actions on the first day of the trial, probably in November.

This Labor Day, Sweeney will be speaking at the Oakland Coliseum.

In 1990 at the Coliseum, Nelson Mandela, just released from prison, commended the longshore union for its protest action against a ship from South Africa, which sparked the anti-apartheid movement.

On June 9, one of the largest labor rallies ever held in South Carolina was attended by workers from across the U.S. and even overseas. From the podium, Bjorn Borg, president of the Swedish Dockworkers' Union, warned that persecution of workers in South Carolina will not go unnoticed by longshore workers around the world, alluding to an international day of action on the first day of the trial.

Last month, the ILWU International Dockworkers' Solidarity Conference met in Long Beach with union delegates representing longshoremen from fifteen countries that are key to the global economy. When Riley made an emotional appeal for solidarity actions in defense of the Charleston 5, he received a standing ovation. If the government of South Carolina and W.S.I are intent on pursuing their prosecutorial vendettas, they may be unwittingly arousing a listless trade union movement here and internationally.

Jack Heyman lives in Oakland and is a member of the executive board of the San Francisco longshore union.