Class War on the Waterfront: Longshore Workers Under Attack (tags)
ILWU Local 10 retired longshoreman Jack Heyman talks about technology and the danger of a proposed 8 year contract.
Longshore Struggle Brews on Both Coasts, Part 2 (tags)
In the Northwest, at the terminals on the Columbia River, Puget Sound, and Portland, Oregon, the membership of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) are on the defensive against the Northwest Grain Handlers Association (NWGHA). The conflict involves nearly 3,000 workers at terminals that handle a quarter of the nation’s grain exports.
Longshore Struggle Brews on Both Coasts (tags)
Part I - It’s a familiar pattern: those on top of the economic ladder enjoy massive profits, while expecting workers to sacrifice even more for the “greater good.”
Longshore Workers, Truckers: Shut the Ports, Coast to Coast! (tags)
Following the nationally-coordinated police evictions last month of Occupy Wall Street and encampments across the country, on December 12 the Occupiers struck back. Ports up and down the West Coast were blockaded, from Seattle to San Diego. Despite a barrage of hostile propaganda in the media, opposition from union bureaucrats and heavy police repression in some places, overall the blockade was successful -- this time. The blockade was called in solidarity with longshore workers fighting a union-busting assault in Longview, Washington and port truckers seeking union recognition in the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach. This support should have been greeted. But now the class war on the West Coast docks is coming to a head, and it can't be waged from the outside. Bay Area labor has called for a caravan to Longview. The goal should be a real occupation of the terminal by the workers to prevent the loading of the scab cargo. Longshore militants have called on the longshore unions to shut down every port on the West Coast, and the East and Gulf Coasts, to smash EGT's union-busting. Can it be done? Yes, but only though sharp struggle against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy.
May 15, 2009 LA ILWU Local 13 75th Commemoration March in Wilmington at 10:00 AM (tags)
On May 15, 2009 ILWU Local 13 will have a march to honor members killed and injured in their strike
May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports (tags)
On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn't want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers' Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an "illegal strike." But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses' mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers' May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their "symbolic" action was felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party.
Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war (tags)
This is called Walking the Talk. Please do all you can to publicize and support this effort.
Unprecedented Sell-Out by Ugles & Co. in ILWU Local 19, Seattle (tags)
Five months before organized West Coast longshore workers are set to begin bargaining for a new contract with the employers association, union officers in one ILWU local are already starting to give away some key historic gains of waterfront workers
Stop Union Busting on the Waterfront! (tags)
In a show of solidarity ILWU Local 10 voted for a port-wide shutdown in support of the IBU & MMP workers. This is call for all union members and their allies to join us on the picket line Pier 31/33, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, December 9, 2006 at 10 AM.
Police attack injures protesters, workers (tags)
OAKLAND, Calif. – Outraged witnesses and community leaders used words like “preemptive,” “premeditated,” and “brutal” during an emotionally charged meeting of the Oakland City Council to describe the Oakland Police Department’s attack on anti-war demonstrators and longshore workers near the gate of the Stevedoring Services of America dock on Monday, April 7.
5 deaths of longshore workers prove hazardous conditions (tags)
There have been 5 deaths of longshore workers this year on the docks, demonstrating the hazardous working conditions. The World Socialist Website provides one perspective on what is to be done.
ACTION ALERT: Bush trying to smash ILWU, the most powerful radical union in America (tags)
Bush is attempting to bust the most powerful radical union in America, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). They've done numerous solidarity actions for environmental, labor & human rights groups & they need our support on the West Coast.
Short list of ILWU Solidarity (tags)
Short List of ILWU Solidarity
Bush threatens troops in longshore dispute (tags)
LOS ANGELES – The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) revealed this week that a secret Bush administration task force has threatened a military takeover of West Coast ports if the union decides to strike.