On March 1, 2000 International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422 President Kenneth Riley addressed the ILWU Longshore Caucus meeting in San Francisco. Riley’s local in the Port of Charleston, South Carolina has been under attack—one shipping line there has begun using non-union labor. The state responded to the local’s picketing with a huge show of force by police who started a violent confrontation with union longshoremen Jan.20. Now the South Carolina attorney General is charging four members with felony conspiracy and riot charges. ILWU longshore Local 10 responded with sending a $5,000 contribution to the Local 1422 defense fund, sending two delegates to Charleston and bringing a resolution of support to the Longshore Caucus. After Riley spoke to the Caucus, the delegates voted to donate another $50,000 to the defense fund. The next day Riley addressed longshore Local 13’s membership meeting and received another $50,000 from them. The following is a slightly edited version of Riley’s speech to the Longshore Caucus explaining his local’s struggle.
Good morning, brothers and sisters. Let me just say, first of all, how deeply appreciative I am for being allowed to be in your presence today, not because of the struggle that we are in, but because we on the East Coast have heard so much about this great organization. We know of your legacy. We keep up with some of the struggles that you on this coast have had. So, we are indeed grateful for this opportunity to be with you today. I bring you greetings from the ILA, especially from the Port of Charleston. On behalf of Local 1422, the longshore local that I represent,1422A, the container maintenance, maintenance and repair, and 1771, the clerks and checkers, we bring you greetings. We have been involved in a struggle. We felt that it was time to draw the line in the sand.
For the first time in Charleston, South Carolina, we found that a non-ILA, nonunion operation was going to handle containers. We felt that that was a threat. As we all know, containerization is the wave of the future. We have been doing work for this line, Nordana, for over 23 years. We had a long-standing relationship.
On the East Coast, we have what is called the Container Carrier Council that represents all the major steamship lines. It is about a 36-member organization. But there are other carriers that are not members of the council that are subscribers to the agreement. In other words, they agree to live up to the terms and the conditions of the contract negotiated with the carriers and would employ the ILA under those terms and conditions. Nordana is one of those that subscribes to that agreement. When you add the members along with those that subscribe to that agreement, you are talking about 76 different carriers that control probably 93 to 95 percent of all containers moving along the East and Gulf Coast.
In the Port of Charleston, Nordana can simply decide at any time, “We are done with the ILA, we are going to go to an alternative workforce.” Nordana served notice on us some two months before the first vessel was going to work non-ILA. We immediately engaged our employers to find out what was going on. We found that Nordana was claiming to have financial problems around the world and this was going to be some type of corporate decision. We initiated meetings with our employers, Nordana and the port authority. We had five different meetings with the port authority to try to get them to understand that while Nordana represented only less than one-tenth of one percent of the work in Charleston, why would we allow such a small piece of business to disrupt 30 years of harmony and growth in the Port of Charleston. We have had our problems contractually, but always we sat down and we continued to work until we reached some form of an agreement. However, this was not going to be the case with Nordana. They had already told us that their decision was pretty much final.
In spite of that we put together a concessionary package for them crafted after an agreement that they had with the Houston longshore local. We offered them a reduction in a move of desperation. We offered a package that translated into a 50 percent reduction in labor costs. Everyone in the industry other than Nordana felt that that was an agreement they simply could not refuse. Unfortunately, they did, which led to us believe there was much more to it than just economics. This was going to be a defining moment where the union would be attacked. We felt it was not only coming from Nordana, but it was coming from the state itself. We had four alternatives we placed on the table. One, they would continue to do business with the non-ILA company, and the port authority and the state would continue to provide the kind of costly protection they were providing.
The second alternative was that they would now take their vessel out of Charleston to a smaller South Carolina port, Georgetown, South Carolina, which was pretty much a nonunion facility.
Thirdly, they sit down and negotiate an agreement with ILA.
Fourth, they would have to leave the port.
Immediately the port authority pulled the first option off the table. There was no way they were going to continue to provide such costly protection for them every time that vessel comes to Charleston.
The option of going to Georgetown proved to be logistically impossible for Nordana with the rail situation.
The third option was to sit down with the ILA. We met and tried to work out something with them. It didn’t work.
We got in touch with the port authority to say, “Look, we want that fourth option put in place.” At that time, we were told by the director of the port that it was now out of his hands. He had gotten orders from the state to let everything stay just like it is. They were ready to challenge the union even though Nordana is such a small piece of business and that type of disruption can spill over into all these other operations that we have valued for so many years. Sixteen of the top 20 lines in the world call on the Port of Charleston. To sacrifice all of that for this small piece of business, something was just not right.
Four days prior to the next Nordana ship coming in we received a call from some of our friends in law enforcement. They had had three law enforcement summits regarding this particular situation. They told us that we were not going to believe what we were going to see on Jan.20th. When that day came, I did not believe what was out there. Early that day they had started to bus in all the police protection,600 law enforcement officers. They were all dressed in riot gear. Some were on horses. Helicopters in the air. Boats in the water. Armored vehicles. You would think there was going to be a terrorist attack on the State of South Carolina.
Our union headquarters are just about 150 yards from the entrance to the terminal. We were in full view of everything that was taking place. Not only did they set up down at the terminal, they were in front of our building. Very intimidating, very provoking.
Prior to that night there had not been one single incident with any law enforcement officers that merited that type of show of force. Again, the Attorney General, after getting involved in this situation, ordered that type of show of force.
We thought at that time that the best thing to do was simply not even show. We were going to let them stay out there by themselves. They were already spending the taxpayers’ money. The ship was to begin working at 7:00. At 6:00 o’clock we told our members, the three locals combined, “Look, we are not going to go down, we have nothing to gain. We could not get to the ship, we could not even get to the gate, forget it.”
It was just too heavily guarded. They had a squad car every 50 yards around the entire circumference of the port authority, inside the fence and outside the fence. On the waterside of the terminal they had police patrol boats, probably about seven of them, patrolling the water side. So, you could forget getting down there. It was dark. No one could read our signs. That went over very well at 6:00 to 7:00 o’clock that evening. I told our members, “Look, they are already spending this money. When the media reports on what took place tonight, they would be the ones to look like fools. They were down there and we were not.”
I asked them to go home. But I wanted to keep these officers out there all night, spend that money all night. I wanted everybody to set their alarm clocks for 11:00 or 11:30 and fill the parking lot back up at midnight. By that time we felt they would have sent several of the law enforcement officers home, and when they saw us reassembling they would have to call them all back. That was just a strategy to make them spend the money. At midnight we would decide whether we would do it again. It was cold, it was wet. We wanted them to stay out there all night long.
I stayed around with a couple other officers from the other two locals to monitor the situation between 7:00 and 12:00. About 9:30 they sent 40 cars back to the upper state with four patrolmen in each one of them. But at 11:30, when we started reassembling, most of those cars started heading back down just like we thought they would.
At 11:30 we received a call upstairs that I had better come downstairs because the men are showing back up and they are now saying they are going to go down there. We went back downstairs. While we were making our way to the podium, these members started saying, “There is no need to tell us not to go down there, we are angery. We can hardly get back to our own union hall.”
We told them, “Okay, for all of those who have to go, go ahead, but be careful and do not engage the officers.”
In less than 20 minutes after going down there, the law enforcement officers engaged them. They began their riot march and started to push back. The confrontation began. In less than 20 minutes we received a call that the first guy was laying on the pavement with his head busted open. It was a clerk and checker.
We ran down there and started trying to push our guys back, to get them out of there. It sounded like a bunch kids in a junkyard beating on tin cans. That is the type of clash that was taking place. We ran up to the front of the line and we created a buffer between the law enforcement officers and our members. About the time we had fully established that buffer and got everything under control, one of the officers ran out of formation, clubbed me on the head and ran back into the formation. When that happened, everything just went wild.
Nine men were charged with misdemeanor trespassing. All those charges were dropped. The Attorney General’s office was clearly embarrassed by the fact that they didn’t present enough evidence to convict these guys. But he pledged at the time those charges were dropped that he was going to go to the Grand Jury, he was going to seek federal indictment against these individuals. Out of the nine they think that they only have enough information to indict four. They don’t have anything. We have challenged them to come forward with anything they have. They don’t have a thing. The video that they have subpoenaed, we have subpoenaed as well. The video clearly shows who was the aggressor. We feel certain that we are going get the charges dropped somewhere along the way. However, we cannot be sure of that because South Carolina is an anti-union state, a right-to-work state. Prior to last year it was the least organized state in the union. We just surpassed North Carolina because of a very aggressive organizing campaign that we put on last year, had a 90 percent success rate in all the elections that were conducted in the State of South Carolina.
We have a serious organizing campaign. Because of those victories, it has really angered the likes of the South Carolina State Chamber of Commerce. We have one of the most powerful Chambers of Commerce in the country. They pride themselves on that. They are so well knit together, they so well control the House of Representatives, they say they can in effect write their own legislation and just hand it to them. And they have been doing that. In South Carolina we are one of only two states that do not comply with the federal minimum wage law. We are the only state without a national holiday for Martin Luther King. We are the only state that still flies the Confederate flag over our state capital. The only state that is under economic boycott by the NAACP. We are only state that I know of right now that has an all white Supreme Court. We are constantly going backwards in South Carolina. It all has to do with the anti-worker mentality, anti-union mentality that exists in the State of South Carolina.
It was not coincidental that coming up to this incident that occurred in Charleston—they like to keep calling it a riot, we just consider it an incident—everything that has happened has happened not in the streets of Charleston, not downtown where you are blowing out windows and plundering and so forth, it has all happened on the job site. So, we don’t consider it a riot, we consider it a job action that unfortunately turned violent. There are several pieces of anti-union legislation that came about and were introduced because of this incident. They use that incident to say this is the reason why we need tougher anti-union, tougher right-to-work laws in South Carolina. They have introduced legislation right now that almost makes it virtually impossible for a union to collect any form of dues or assessments from their members. The law actually makes it illegal that as a condition of employment that the union can assess any fees, any dues or revenue obtaining measures against their members.
The other piece of legislation has to do with making it illegal for any card-carrying union member in the State of South Carolina to be appointed to any board, agency or commission in the State of South Carolina. In the last election,1998, we had an opportunity to elect the first Democratic Governor in 12 years. Labor got very actively involved in that campaign. Labor delivered. We elected a Democratic governor [Jim Hodges]. As a result, for the first time in the State of South Carolina, the Governor reached back and appointed a labor person, myself, to his transition team. Then he came back and said,“Look, we want to do something for labor and we want to do something for you in the maritime community, which would be for the first time in the history of the State of South Carolina that someone from the maritime industry would be appointed to the board of the South Carolina State Port Authority.” He nominated me. Within three days, the South Carolina Manufacturing Alliance and the South Carolina State Chamber of Commerce issued what they called a grassroots alert to every business person in the State of South Carolina: “We must stop that appointment, we must defeat that appointment because it will send a message around the world that South Carolina is now open to labor unions, that we are embracing labor unions in the State of South Carolina, and that is something that cannot happen.”
They began to canvas their representatives. Even though they mounted such an attack, we did have the votes in the Democratic-controlled Senate. However, the Governor folded under such pressure and pulled back the nomination. It looked like big business once again has crushed the labor movement in the State of South Carolina. Because he had made an attempt to place labor on the board, the legislation now comes forward to say that it will be illegal for any card-carrying union member to serve on any board, any commission in the State of South Carolina. They term that bill the Kenneth Riley bill. It has passed the House, but it will be dead on arrival when it gets to the Senate, thanks to our friends over there.
That is just to give you an idea what we are faced with in South Carolina. Not only are we having the immediate problem with Nordana, it goes much deeper than that. It’s an all out attack, it’s a violation of civil rights that is occurring in the State of South Carolina. It is unconstitutional. We served notice on those legislators that if this bill were to somehow pass, the day it passes is the day we file a lawsuit. It’s unconstitutional. It’s discriminatory.
Again, we appreciate all the support from all the ILWU people up and down the coast. Those people in the trenches, those hard working people now facing felony charges, it was very encouraging to them to know that they are not in this struggle alone.
We would love to have an opportunity to reciprocate with you at any time you should be faced with a struggle. I don’t think from the ILA perspective that support has always been there, that networking of East Coast workers and West Coast dock work. We know in fact that our industry has become global in nature. We know our economy is global in nature. As was said earlier, so must our workforce. We must become global in our perspective in looking at things so that we can continue to build a strong network of working people around the world through organizations such as the ITF, the International Dockworkers Council and any other organization that may come about that brings working people together around the world.
I feel that if we are going to survive in the 21st Century, we are going to have to strengthen those ties. We have to rebuild and tear down some of those old walls of tradition. Workers are going to have to unite so that wherever there are working people in a struggle, not only in this country, but around the world, that workers everywhere else can rise to their support and bring relief in a very timely manner.
