International Longshore and Warehouse Union
International Executive Board
San Francisco, California
The global attack by steamship lines, terminal operators and stevedoring companies on the unions, wages and conditions of longshore workers has moved from Mexico and Brazil, from Liverpool and Australia, and has landed on American shores-specifically at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina. There International Longshoremen’s Association Locals 1422 and 1771, their officers and individual members are facing imprisonment and bankruptcy for picketing in defense of their jobs and jurisdiction. When Nordana Lines, a Danish steamship company that had worked with the Charleston locals for 23 years, unilaterally announced it would begin using non-union labor, the locals began picketing the company’s ships and had some effect the first couple of times. The State of South Carolina then purposefully provoked a confrontation with the longshore workers, sending 600 riot-equipped police officers to the picket line Jan. 20, 2000. The state Attorney General then charged five union members with felony “incite to riot” charges punishable by up to five years in jail.
In an action that echoes what the ILWU went through in the Neptune Jade affair, Winyah Stevedoring, Inc. (WSI), the company that hired the scab labor, filed suit against the locals, their presidents and 27 individual union members for the $1.5 million in alleged monetary losses it claims it incurred as a result of the industrial action. The lawsuit could be the financial ruin of the locals and the workers’ families.
The ILWU has always viewed any attack on any longshore union as an attack on itself. Rarely has the assault been so close to home.
Charleston is the opening salvo in the war against American longshore workers and the American labor movement, an indication of things to come under a possible George W. Bush administration. It must be stopped here.
The ILWU Longshore Division has already taken the lead on this issue. At its February-March 2000 Caucus the division passed a resolution in support of the Charleston locals and the division has contributed more than $100,000 to the legal defense fund.
The ILWU endorses and throws the weight of its members and resources behind the international campaign of Justice for the Charleston Dockworkers being organized by the South Carolina AFL-CIO with the assistance of the national AFL-CIO. By so doing the ILWU joins the growing list of unions, civil rights organizations and community groups in demanding the State of South Carolina drop the criminal charges against the Charleston 5 and stop its witch hunt of unionists. The ILWU also demands that WSI vacate its lawsuit against the union and its members.
The ILWU also commits itself to taking part in the international actions in solidarity with the Justice for the Charleston Dockworkers campaign to the fullest legal extent possible. The International Executive Board encourages all ILWU locals, regions and affiliates, their officers and members to establish and join local defense committees in support of the Charleston longshore workers. These committees should publicize the struggle, raise money for the legal defense fund and organize other unions, civil rights organizations and community groups to participate in the international day of action that will occur as the trial of the Charleston 5 begins.
The ILWU also calls on all longshore unions around the world that it has fraternal relations with and all international dockworker associations to join in the campaign for Justice for the Charleston Dockworkers.
