CA Federation of Labor Support for ILWU & Neptune Jade
Michael Eisenscher
SOLIDARITY
Whereas, the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO has always resisted
attacks on organized labor's freedom of association, its First Amendment
rights of free speech and assembly, the right to picket and honor picket
lines and the right to act in solidarity for social justice and workers'
rights, and
Whereas, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has
consistently held high labor's banner, "An injury to one is an injury to
all" implementing this basic labor principle, by supporting oppressed
workers internationally, whether under the gun of South African
apartheid or the right-wing military dictatorships of Chile and El
Salvador; and
Whereas, presently the ILWU is currently under legal attack from the
Pacific Maritime Association, the employer organization representing
global shipowners and stevedoring companies, because longshore workers
here in the port of Oakland refused last year to cross a picket line of
labor activists (against the containership Neptune Jade with scab cargo
from England) in support of the Liverpool dockworkers, themselves waging
an international struggle against unionbusting, and
Whereas, before the court hearing the California Labor Federation,
AFL-CIO passed a resolution in support of the Neptune Jade defendants,
and
Whereas, the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO helped turn out
Bay Area organized labor turned out in force in downtown Oakland on
February 26, 1998 to demand the charges be dropped and to protest the
PMA's strategy of harassment and intimidation, using McCarthyite tactics
to demand defendants "name names" of individuals and unions involved in
the protest, and
Whereas, in the wake of this mass labor demonstration Judge Henry
Needham Jr., on March 4, dismissed the charges against all but picket
captain Robert Irminger, citing their right to exercise the First
Amendment, and
Whereas, the PMA, intent on halting future ILWU actions of international
labor solidarity and as part of a campaign by global maritime employers
to break dockworkers unions around the world has raised the ante, adding
new plaintiffs and going to court on July 22, 1998, to compel the ILWU
International and ILWU Locals 10 and 34 to turn over internal union
documents to gather evidence against Irminger and other possible
defendants,
Therefore be it resolved that the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO
condemns PMA's anti-union attack and its witch hunt tactics with the
full weight of the organized labor movement and demands that this case
be dropped once and for all and be it finally
Resolved that the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO reaffirms its
support of workers' First Amendment rights and the right to picket and
honor picket lines in solidarity with other workers.