United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

In an opinion piece posted two weeks ago, longshoreman Jack Heyman warned that the Pacific Maritime Association's legal threats designed to stop the ILWU's May 1 antiwar action would fail: "PMA legal threats will only anger longshore workers."[1] -- "To stop this war is going to take international action by the working class, not by phony appeals to patriotism," he said. -- "We're stopping work to stop the war. And if we shut the waterfront down tight as a drum, so that nothing moves on the docks to send the message that this war has got to end or we're pulling the plug — then the politicians, generals, and bankers in Washington on Wall Street are going to take notice. You know it and I know it and they know it — we all know it. So let's get serious about this: no work means no work. If PMA sees that they can divide us, it will just encourage them to take a harder line in the contract bargaining. If they see that we're standing solid on May Day, it will tell them what's coming their way if they try to hardtime us in the negotiations." -- And on Tuesday, a history professor's Op-Ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said that "the International Longshore and Warehouse Union will declare an eight-hour strike to protest the war in Iraq" in what was that paper's first mention of the upcoming action.[2] -- But AP reported Tuesday that the "union's leadership earlier this month withdrew its request to have its employer, the Pacific Maritime Association, provide the day off and Thursday's protest efforts will now be voluntary and done on an individual basis."[3] -- And the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, CA, reported that "The union withdrew its support shortly after the Pacific Maritime Association denied the union's request for the walkout. An arbitrator ruled last week that the union had to inform its members about the change in plans. -- As a result, any work stoppage held Thursday will be initiated by the union's rank-and-file members, not by union executives, according to Merrilees," a union spokesperson, and Art Marroquin said that "Workers who choose to walk off the job Thursday might face some sort of discipline, but it was unclear what avenues the employers would pursue."[4] -- But labor commentator Dick Meister ignored the technicalities of the legal controversy and wrote in the San Francisco Bay Guardian on Wedneday that the work stoppage "could be the loudest and most forceful demand yet for rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq."[5] -- Dozens of blogs take a similar tack....

** Stop PMA's Phony Legal Attack! -- Defend Our Union! -- Support the Caucus Resolution! **

Around contract time, it often gets hot between unions and employers. I've been in the trade union movement 50 years. (I joined the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union when I was 14 years old.) I have never heard an employer use such bogus arguments to deny workers their right to a union meeting particularly at contract time. Longshore workers, by democratic vote, have decided to stop work on May Day to stop the war, a war that most people in this country oppose. It's the war that's illegal, not our decision to stop work. PMA legal threats will only anger longshore workers, especially now during negotiations, a time when Local 10 has usually led the locals on the Coast in job actions showing our union's strength to bolster the Negotiating Committee. Our action was decided by a democratic debate at the Longshore Caucus and that's the highest body in the ILWU Longshore Division when it's in session. PMA can't change that decision.

The ILWU International requested to change the date of our stop work meetings in April 1999 and PMA agreed. The purpose for the meeting change was to lead a demonstration of 20,000 people in San Francisco to help save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an innocent black journalist on death row in Pennsylvania. PMA didn't have a problem then and shouldn't have a problem now. We also had negotiations going on then and there was a helluva lot more shipping going on then. It's clear PMA is trying to test the will of the ILWU membership. Our antiwar action has the backing of many trade unions as well as the San Francisco Labor Council, the International Dockworkers Council and the International Transport Workers Federation, representing longshore unions in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Labor action can stop the war. Pressuring the Democrats will not. They've proved it already. They got a majority in both houses of Congress in '06 because voters thought they would put an end to the war. And what happened? They keep voting billions for the war budget over and over, Clinton, Obama, McCain -- all of them. The International has endorsed Barack Obama, but he, like the others, says he can't withdraw "combat brigades" from Iraq until some time in 2010, and he, like the others, says he will keep some troops in Iraq indefinitely. He wants to increase the U.S. forces in Afghanistan and attack Iran and Pakistan! I'm not voting for any Democrat or Republican. As I've said before, the labor movement needs its own party, a workers party. In any case, the Caucus resolution that passed is clear as can be. It says this is "a bipartisan and unjustifiable war in Iraq and Afghanistan but the two major political parties, Democrats and Republicans continue to fund the war." And that's truth.

The Caucus resolution doesn't get into the whole "support the troops" or "safe withdrawal" thing because it is a trap. The Democrats and Republicans in Congress, even the ones who say they're against the war, say they vote for the Pentagon budget to show that they "support the troops." All that does is keep the war going. For an occupying army to withdraw only when it's "safe" means never because it's always violent and chaotic when a foreign military invades and oppresses people of another country. A lot of sisters and brothers in the ILWU, like myself, have friends and relatives in the armed forces, some of them in Iraq. Many of them got dragged into the military in what is being called the "economic draft" -- basically because they didn't see any other way to get a skill or get a college education paid for. So instead they kill and get killed. And flag-waving doesn't do them any favors -- it ends up with the flag draped over coffins.

Again, our resolution says clearly, we "demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East." And it's not just us. We're not in this alone. We're getting messages of support from around the world. To stop this war is going to take international action by the working class, not by phony appeals to patriotism. We're hoping that our action can get British workers and Japanese workers and Italian and French workers to stop work as well. Then we'll see some results.

No work should be done in any port on the Coast Thursday May 1st, nothing moves. If any port works, it undercuts the whole purpose of our action and shows a divided ILWU to PMA. We had a democratic vote to stop work and mobilize for a "No Peace No Work Holiday," remember? No work means no work, period.

We're doing something here that takes courage, something people all over the world are watching, something our kids and grandkids will be proud of us for. We're adding a new page to the ILWU history book, "The ILWU Story, Six Decades of Militant Unionism." Because when we stand up and say "no," we put our money where our mouth is. We're stopping work even though it's costing every one of us because we want to make a point. It shows we mean business and we don't want PMA to tell us what we can and can't do.

We're stopping work to stop the war. And if we shut the waterfront down tight as a drum, so that nothing moves on the docks to send the message that this war has got to end or we're pulling the plug -- then the politicians, generals, and bankers in Washington on Wall Street are going to take notice. You know it and I know it and they know it -- we all know it. So let's get serious about this: no work means no work. If PMA sees that they can divide us, it will just encourage them to take a harder line in the contract bargaining. If they see that we're standing solid on May Day, it will tell them what's coming their way if they try to hardtime us in the negotiations.

Already you have the big business press reporting that shippers want to "streamline operations" by eliminating jobs, that they would like to "dispatch work assignments over the Internet rather than at union hiring halls," and that they "have shown an interest in moving work away from the docks, which the ILWU dominates." But, the article says, "workers in Vancouver, Canada's independent ILWU affiliate this February stopped work during two shifts as a show of strength during negotiations." And while "The significance of the May Day antiwar stoppage is small when compared to the threat of a longer shutdown," it adds, "this spring's wrangling, which pits union jobs against shippers' profits, might portend the sort of confrontation" that has economists up nights worrying (Miller-McCune, April 9). That's what the bosses' press is saying. So let's give them something to worry about.

On Thursday, May Day, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union will declare an eight-hour strike to protest the war in Iraq. Since the ILWU controls every port along the U.S. Pacific Coast, including Seattle and Tacoma, this strike demonstrates the collective power of workers willing to use it.

The ILWU is demanding "an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East." Although the majority of Americans repeatedly have expressed their desire to end the war, President Bush has not obliged us, so it drags on. Because our leaders refuse to listen, ILWU members are taking the next logical step for workers: Strike.

For those unfamiliar, the ILWU is perhaps the most militant and politicized worker organization in the nation. It operates in one of the most important sectors of the world economy -- marine transport -- and, thus, is in a strategic location to put peace above profits.

Forged in the fires of 1930s worker struggles to gain basic rights, the ILWU was born in 1934 when longshoremen (there were no women in the industry then, though there are now) performed the incredibly hard, dangerous, and important work of loading and unloading ships. To improve their wages and wrest some control over their lives, men all along the coast struck -- and in a few instances died -- to gain union recognition.

The ILWU is highly democratic. A caucus of more than 100 longshore workers representing every union local establishes policies for the Longshore Division. It was this caucus that voted to declare the May Day strike.

Dockworkers, including those in the ILWU, have a proud tradition of political action. For example, in the 1980s the ILWU respected the strike of British dockworkers by refusing to unload a ship worked by scab labor. Just last week, union longshoremen in South Africa refused to unload a Chinese vessel carrying military supplies destined for autocratic Zimbabwe -- a tremendous example of solidarity.

That the ILWU chose International Workers' Day to declare this strike suggests its political commitment and internationalism. Around the world, workers honor labor by taking a holiday. What few Americans know is that the tradition of a May Day strike originated not in the Soviet Union in the 1950s but the United States of the 1880s.

These days, such examples of worker power are increasingly rare in the U.S. The tragedy is that, historically, labor activism gave us the 40-hour workweek (and the weekend) and helped humanize the exploitative excesses of unregulated capitalism. As income inequality continues to grow in the United States, it is wise to remember how, in the past, strong unions created a larger middle class as well as a more democratic and egalitarian nation.

The ILWU strike also reminds us that unions still have an important role in public discussions beyond the workplace. As a democratic institution, the ILWU is precisely the sort of "civic society" that the Bush administration has been trying to create in Iraq. On May 1, dockworkers will speak loud and clear -- end the endless war in Iraq. Other American workers who want to support our troops by bringing them home can make their voices heard by joining with the brave men and women of the ILWU and taking the day off.

--Peter Cole is an associate professor of history at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Ill. His book Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia was published by the University of Illinois Press.

Bay Area longshore workers are planning to gather Thursday to protest the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially thwarting activity at the region's ports, according to members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Brandon Taylor, an operations manager for GSC Logistics, a warehousing, distribution, and transportation company at the Port of Oakland, said today that the company had known about the protests for a few weeks and is planning to get all containers out of the port today and Wednesday in order to prevent halting production.

He said the good news is that it is a slow time of year and volumes are not very large.

However plans for the protest have been modified since the Longshore Caucus, the highest decision-making body for union, voted in February overwhelmingly for a resolution supporting the May 1 protest, said Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the union.

The union planned to hold a "stop-work day'' to halt commerce at all 29 West Coast ports to protest and call an end to the war.

But [the] union's leadership earlier this month withdrew its request to have its employer, the Pacific Maritime Association, provide the day off and Thursday's protest efforts will now be voluntary and done on an individual basis, Merrilees said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union's contract with the Pacific Maritime Association permits work at ports to stop for one shift a month for membership meetings that are held on specific dates. The union had requested to change the date for the protest, however its employer did not permit the change, according to the union.

Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Association, said the association did not agree because of the disruption it would cause during a peak period of operations.

One of many protests planned for Thursday along the West Coast will be in San Francisco, where workers are scheduled to meet at the San Francisco union office at 10 a.m. before marching along Embarcadero to Justin Herman Plaza for a noon rally. Scheduled speakers include Danny Glover, Cindy Sheehan, and Daniel Ellsberg.

Clarence Thomas, an executive board member of San Francisco-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 said, "This is an historic event, the first time in recent memory American workers have stopped work to stop a war.''

Getzug said the union notified the Pacific Maritime Association on April 1 that it dropped it's demand for a May 1 stop-work meeting and that "it's our understanding that May 1, for all intents and purposes will be a regular work day."

** Protest is aimed at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but union leaders are not involved. **

West Coast dockworkers plan to walk off the job Thursday to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the action doesn't have the formal support of their employers or the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

It was unclear how successful the effort will be at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where a group of longshore workers admitted uncertainty to how widely the plan was received by other dockworkers.

"There are lots of members who are expressing their personal views and committing to this voluntary action," said Craig Merrilees, an ILWU spokesman.

ILWU executives had initially given their blessing to an eight-hour work stoppage during the busy day shift, which was suggested two months ago during a union caucus held in San Francisco.

A clause in the union's current contract allows workers to hold monthly "stop-work" meetings during the evening shift, when cargo activity is considered to be lighter.

The union withdrew its support shortly after the Pacific Maritime Association denied the union's request for the walkout. An arbitrator ruled last week that the union had to inform its members about the change in plans.

As a result, any work stoppage held Thursday will be initiated by the union's rank-and-file members, not by union executives, according to Merrilees.

"In light of those developments, we hope that May 1 will come and go without disruption," said Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the PMA, which represents the West Coast's shippers.

Workers who choose to walk off the job Thursday might face some sort of discipline, but it was unclear what avenues the employers would pursue.

Immigration rights groups also plan to hold a series of marches and rallies in Los Angeles and cities across the country on Thursday to call for reforms in immigration policies.

Some port truck drivers and dockworkers have resisted signing up for the federal Transportation Workers Identification Credential because undocumented workers do not qualify for the high-tech security card.

** The ILWU hopes the dramatic act of shutting down West Coast ports will inspire Americans everywhere to oppose the war **

Organized labor is set to mark May Day -- International Workers' Day -- with what could be the loudest and most forceful demand yet for rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) will lead the way by refusing to work their eight-hour morning shifts at ports in California, Oregon, and Washington. For them, it will be a "no peace, no work" holiday -- in effect, a strike against the war. [They will instead lead and other anti-war demonstrations in the port cities.]

Like many other unions and labor organizations nationwide, the ILWU has long opposed the war in Iraq as an imperialist action in which the lives of young working-class Americans and Iraqi citizens are being needlessly wasted.

["It is not liberation," as an Iraqi labor leader, Ghasib Hassan, told delegates to a recent U.S. labor convention. "It is occupation."]

The ILWU hopes the dramatic act of shutting down West Coast ports will inspire Americans everywhere to oppose the war. [As one longshoreman said, "President Bush wants working and poor folks to fight his war . . . the sons and daughters of working-class families. We want them out of harm's way."

That's one of the main messages of] the coalition behind this movement, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), has been growing steadily since the invasion of Iraq.

It's now the largest organized antiwar group of any kind and is drawing important support, not only from unions but from a wide variety of socially-conscious activist groups outside the labor movement.

USLAW's members, which represent millions of workers, significantly include the AFL-CIO and most of the federation's 56 affiliated unions [-- among them, of course, the ILWU.] No one can doubt USLAW's ability to organize a massive protest like the one ILWU is hoping to lead: it was USLAW that put together the antiwar demonstration that drew half a million marchers to Washington, D.C. last year.

USLAW is demanding primarily that "our elected leaders stop funding the war, bring our troops home, and start meeting human needs here at home," notes Fred Mason, an AFL-CIO official in Maryland. [The needs being neglected to fund the war include many public services -- education, health care, and so much more.]

In the meantime, says Gerald McEntee, a key public employee union leader, "We are spreading violence in Iraq, not democracy." The Bush administration's policies, says Musicians Union leader Tom Lee, "make us less secure, increase the threat of terrorism, and have put Iraq on a path of civil war."

ILWU President Robert McEllrath has urged unions and allied groups outside the United States to also mount protests "to honor labor history and express support for the troops by bringing them home safely."

The AFL-CIO's role [opposition] is particularly notable. [For] it marks the first time the federation has ever opposed a war, whether the president was a pro-labor Democrat or, as now, an antilabor Republican.

The longshoremen's union, which was not affiliated with the AFL-CIO at the time, was firmly opposed to the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars. The ILWU also was a major opponent of dictatorial regimes in South and Central America and the apartheid regime in South Africa, its members often refusing to handle cargo coming from or going to those countries. Just recently, ILWU members in Tacoma, Wash., refused for conscientious reasons to load cargo headed for the Iraq war zone.

We can only hope -- and hope fervently -- that the union's May Day show of strong opposition to the war in Iraq will help prompt millions of others to conclude that they, too, cannot in good conscience support that seemingly endless war.

--Dick Meister is a San Francisco–based writer who has covered labor and political issues for a half-century as a reporter, editor, and commentator. Contact him through his Web site: www.dickmeister.com