Fight Back News Service is circulating the following article from Workers World.

Mobilize! That is the way the San Francisco Labor Council is answering the Pacific Maritime Association’s attack on the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10. In a unanimous resolution, the SFLC called for mass action at the PMA’s San Francisco headquarters on April 25 and established a broad defense committee for the union and its members.

The PMA is seeking to punish ILWU Local 10 for its members’ rank-and-file job action on April 4. The AFL-CIO had called for a National Day of Action on that date in support of Wisconsin workers. ILWU Local 10 volunteered not to go to work. Without their labor power, nothing moved for 24 hours in the ports of San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.

Intimidation won’t work

ILWU Local 10’s job action is part of a bigger fight for all workers, and it’s an important issue for the labor movement. By dragging this strong union before an arbitrator and a federal court judge, the PMA is trying to send a message to all workers to stay in line.

The PMA says that it is OK to have rallies, demonstrations and prayer vigils. It is OK to lobby, recall and vote. The PMA even told the union local that it is OK to shut down ports, but that type of action must be planned with them in order to suit the bosses.

The wheels of capitalism routinely roll on, squeezing the workers and unemployed even harder to make up for the bosses’ losses from the global capitalist economic collapse. However, when the pain of the working class results in a united job action that pinches the profit stream, it really gets attention.

ILWU Local 10 opened up a second front in solidarity with Wisconsin workers, and California’s labor movement is saying that the resulting intimidation by the bosses won’t work and is taking action to prove it, starting on April 25.

Everyone can defend ILWU Local 10

As a first step for workers beyond California’s Bay Area, the Bail Out the People Movement began an online letter campaign to PMA president and CEO, James C. McKenna. It demands that the “PMA drop all retaliatory actions including its suit against ILWU Local 10 and its members for exercising their right to show support for Wisconsin’s public workers and to commemorate Rev. Dr. King Jr.’s assassination [on] the AFL-CIO’s National Day of Action on April 4.

“We commend the brave longshore workers who showed the way by acting with conscience on April 4. We believe that ‘An injury to one is an injury to all!’” BOPM encourages everyone to sign on to this appeal at www.bailoutpeople.org/ilwu.shtml.

Additionally, they ask that community members, students and other activists turn that letter into a petition and take it to protests against school closings and budget cuts. They ask union members to take the SFLC resolution to union meetings, and supporters to take it to their churches, block clubs or other organizations and ask for a letter of support to stand with ILWU Local 10 on April 25. (See Resolutions at sflaborcouncil.org)

PMA: Union buster

Although the anti-working-class offensive focuses on public workers in Wisconsin, Michigan and other states, the rights of every worker — and all union and broader social benefits for the working class — are in the bosses and bankers’ cross hairs right now.

On April 12 ILWU members and supporters occupied the PMA office in Oakland, Calif., for several hours. They held a sit-in in the boardroom to highlight the PMA’s refusal to negotiate with the union. That bosses’ association aims to destroy the solidarity of the coast-wide contract in order to weaken the West Coast dockworkers’ union. According to the Labor Video Project, the PMA even brought nonunion crews into the San Diego port as part of their anti-union campaign.

On April 25 at 11 a.m. join the mass action to support ILWU Local 10 at the PMA San Francisco headquarters at 555 Market St.

#SanFranciscoCA #PacificMaritimeAssociation #Wisconsin #ILWU #ILWULocal10 #SanFranciscoLaborCouncil #InternationalLongshoreAndWarehouseUnion

As Fight Back! goes to press, a key battle for the working class is shaping up in West Coast ports. On one side stands the International Longshore Warehouse Union (ILWU), which has mobilized strong support from West Coast labor. On the other side is the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), a coalition of shipping companies. Behind the PMA stand big business and the Bush Administration.

The PMA is looking for trouble. Refusing to negotiate in good faith, they tried to get dockworkers to accept terms that would eliminate and outsource jobs. At the end of September, they closed down the docks and locked out the ILWU.

The stakes are very high. Twenty-nine ports are shut down. A victory for the dockworkers is a victory for all of labor. The 10,500-member ILWU has a progressive history, and it has often had a positive influence on the entire labor movement. The other side of the strike lines is big business, which needs West Coast shipping. It's estimated that the lockout is delaying $1 billion worth of goods each day. A major portion of U.S. exports go through West Coast docks. With 'just in time' production, factories' parts inventories are kept low. As a result, the auto, aerospace and other industries will be hit hard.

Fight for Jobs and Union

While the Pacific Maritime Association says the issue is its desire to apply new technology to the ports, it goes a lot deeper than this. An ILWU statement notes, “The problem is that much of PMA's ideas about technology are actually something else: outsourcing. What does outsourcing mean? Outsourcing means having non-ILWU people perform jobs that were once performed by ILWU workers, jobs that are contractually ILWU work. It also means that jobs that should be performed by ILWU workers are being given to other work forces.”

Examples of outsourcing include having non-union clerks doing data entry in distant places. Or setting up off-dock container facilities, where shipping containers are unloaded.

Acceptance of the PMA proposals would, in effect, set the stage for the slow motion destruction of the ILWU. In industries as diverse as auto and telecommunications, outsourcing has proven to be an effective tool for employers to run away from unions.

The PMA lockout is an attempt to break the power of ILWU. The shipping and port bosses are counting on intervention by the Bush administration to do their dirty work. Specifically, they hope Bush will invoke the Taft Hartley Act – a notorious piece of anti-labor legislation passed at the height of the cold war. The Act allows the government to impose an 80-day cooling off period, during which the docks would be reopened. Strikes are illegal during those 80 days, which coincide with the height of the Christmas shipping season.

Massive Support

Up and down the West Coast, tens of thousands of workers have come together in rallies and marches to back the ILWU. Messages of solidarity have poured in from unions in the U.S. and around the world. Maritime and mining unions in Australia have pledged to organize an international campaign against PMA shipping lines.

ILWU has a proud history of struggle. Led by Harry Bridges, in 1934, its members fought and died to establish the principle that dock workers would be hired through union hiring halls. Due to its militancy and progressive leadership, in 1950, the union was red baited and tossed out of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). The union remained outside of the AFL-CIO for 38 years. In 1964, the ILWU became the first major union to oppose the war in Vietnam. In 1999, the ILWU shut down West Coast ports in support of African American political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal.

Act Now!

It is vital that the entire labor movement do everything possible to back the members of ILWU. Big business is waging a war on American workers. The dockworkers are on the front lines, fighting back.

#WestCoast #News #PacificMaritimeAssociation #InternationalLongshoreWarehouseUnionILWU