To all longshoremen on the West Coast,
This move by the Nordana Shipping co to not hire the skilled members of the ILA local 1422 is a mistake on their part.
As president of local 13, I spent a week in Charleston at the ILA convention in 1998 at the invite of the President Kenneth Riley Jr, I am very familiar with the operations of the Port of Charleston and of the fine upstanding Union Leader that President Riley is.
The ILWU must throw their support with the Charleston local as this operation is no different than what happened in Australia with Patrick Stevedoring and the Australian Government joining forces and bringing in the trained scabs to take over the docks and throw the Maritime Union of Australia out.
This whole thing about right to work states is dangerous for unions as we see in Charleston. The ILA in general have been fighting scab labor for years around these same issues.
Nordana Line freighter was being unloaded by about 20 nonunion workers guarded by about 600 police officers; the force included officers from the ports authority, Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Charleston County, the State Highway Patrol and the State Law Enforcement Division.
What a disgrace that the main taxpayers, the working stiff has to see this kind of money being spent to protect scabs.
Every working man and woman in Charleston should be in front of the gates at State Ports Authority Columbus Street Terminal and show your elected and appointed officials that you are against this waste in taxpayers money and stop this foreign shipping line from making the decisions about how things should be done in the United States of America.
What is our leader Brian Mac Williams going to do to support the ILA local 1422 all I’ve seen so far is a letter from the President of San Francisco local ten saying “Your stand, in the face of police provocation, was inspiring to us longshoremen on the West Coast The lesson of the bold Liverpool dockersą struggle is clear: longshore unions on both coasts and internationally must be vigilant and supportive of each other in the struggle against these anti-labor threats.”
I couldn’t agree more and a lot of other longshoremen on the West Coast want to know what help are we going to bring to the party Brian?
Fraternally
Scotty
