click image for higher qualityFor defending their jobs, five longshore workers—members of ILA longshore Local 1422 and clerks and checkers Local 1771 in Charleston, South Carolina—face possible imprisonment on state criminal charges. They and some 150 co-workers planned to picket a ship in their port that was using a non-union longshore crew when the state responded with a massive contingent of law enforcement officers and an altercation ensued. The five have been indicted for rioting, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. They could face trial as early as this February. The South Carolina AFL-CIO, with the help of the national AFL-CIO, has initiated an international campaign to defend them and their locals—one of which, Local 1422, is overwhelmingly African American.
“This is a very compelling case, one that brings together all the issues, voice at work and the right to organize, issues of racial justice and issues of democracy,” said Bill Fletcher, assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and AFL-CIO liaison to the campaign.
Besides the criminal charges, the stevedoring company that hired the scabs is suing the two Charleston locals, their presidents and 27 members for $1.5 million in alleged losses it suffered because of the picket line disrupting work. The suit raises the issue of whether workers can be held financially responsible for industrial actions, and raises the specter of bankruptcy for the locals and these individual workers and their families.
The trouble began Oct.1,1999 when Nordana Lines notified the ILA locals it was ending its 23-year relationship with the union and would begin using non-union labor to work its ships. The local responded with picket lines. After peaceful pickets resulted in slight delays to two Nordana ships, the state of South Carolina—which prides itself on being right-to-work state and advertises itself to investors as having the lowest rate of unionization in the country—decided it was going to break the longshore union’s power.
To protect the “right” of some 20 scabs to work the Nordana ship, Skodsborg, Jan.20, the state sent in some 600 police in riot gear. Some rode on horses and others drove armored vehicles. Helicopters circled overhead and police patrol boats cruised the waterside of the terminal.
“You would think there was going to be a terrorist attack on the State of South Carolina,” Ken Riley, president of Local 1422, said of the police presence.
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The police marshalled at the terminal and, for extra provocation, in front of the union’s hall about 150 yards away. The longshore workers stayed away from the terminal, letting the police stay out in the rain and cold by themselves and waste lots of taxpayer money. Late in the evening the workers reassembled at the hall and then went out toward the terminal to exercise their legal right to picket.
According to Riley, the police initiated the clash, pushing back the group of pickets. Trying to calm the situation, Riley and other union officers created a buffer between the police and the pickets. At that point one of the cops ran out of formation and clubbed Riley on the head. Then a fight began.
When it was over the police arrested eight longshore workers on charges of misdemeanor trespassing. At this point State Attorney General Charlie Condon rushed in, took the case away from local law enforcement officials, and raised the misdemeanor charges to felony rioting charges. At a preliminary hearing a judge dismissed the felony charges for lack of evidence, but Condon then went to the Grand Jury and sought and obtained indictments against five of the defendants, on the same charges that had just been dismissed. Condon has made it clear that he intends to prosecute the workers vigorously and has said his plan for them includes “jail, jail and more jail.”
At the same time WSI, the non-union stevedoring company that supplied the scab workers, sued Local 1422 and Ken Riley and Local 1771, the Charleston checkers and clerks local, and its president John Alvones for $1.5 million in alleged financial losses.
Nordana came back to the negotiating table last April and in three days the company and the union came to an agreement both sides could live with. Nordana said high costs pushed it to abandon the union, so the two sides sat down with the ILA contract to see if they could find a solution. The contract includes a provision called the “small boat agreement” for container ships with a capacity of 500 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent ) or less. Under that section working a “small boat” requires the same wages, but some reduced manning and only a four-hour guarantee as opposed to the regular eight hours. It turned out that all along Nordana’s ships had fallen into that category.
Having reached an agreement with the local, Nordana urged WSI to do the same. But WSI pressed on, filing for a summary judgment, claiming the union was clearly at fault and the company had obviously suffered damages, so there was no need for a court hearing. But WSI lost that motion.
The company then amended its complaint to add the names of 27 longshore workers to the list of defendants liable for its losses. It got the names by asking people under oath in depositions to identify all the workers they recognized from pictures of earlier peaceful picketing. The judge allowed the amendment, but warned WSI that if any of its accusations turn out to be frivolous, the company could be sued in return.
The locals immediately responded by filing unfair labor practice charges against WSI with the National Labor Relations Board for retaliating against the workers for exercising their legally protected right to picket.
Locals 1422 and 1771 met with WSI to discuss an out of court settlement Oct.27, but the company wouldn’t make any reasonable compromise. Riley said the local was willing to settle the lawsuit for some nominal amount without admitting any guilt because of what it could cost in legal fees to vindicate themselves.
“We have more serious charges to concentrate on,” he said, referring to the criminal indictments. “We need to focus on these other guys who stand a chance of going to prison. If these guys are convicted based on being identified through photos, by just having been there, the next time there’s a struggle and we have to go to a picket line, workers will be reluctant to picket.”
Currently the local’s attorneys figure the criminal case will not go to court until February 2001. In the meantime the Charleston 5 are still under a strict curfew that requires them to stay home between 7 p. m. and 7 a. m. if they are not working or at a union meeting and travel restrictions that don’t allow them to leave the state.
The South Carolina AFL-CIO and the national AFL-CIO, are mounting a campaign in defense of the Charleston 5. They know they have an uphill fight.
“The Attorney General is planning to run for governor next time around and he’s trying to make a name for himself,” said South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna Dewitt. “I think he plans to make himself a name at the expense of these five guys.”
The Jan.20 incident happened about the same time as 47,000 people—mostly African Americans—marched and demanded the Confederate flag be taken down from the state capitol.
“That scared the Republicans to death in this state,” Dewitt said. “And here you have a minority local union that’s strong and is very involved in the political roots of the community. They’re using the longshore union as an example because they are strong leaders and the state doesn’t want others to see them that way.”
The campaign will seek the acquittal of the Charleston 5 and complete vindication of the 27 targeted workers and the locals and their officers in the WSI civil case, while building a strong case for workers’ rights and exposing the racist efforts of the state to limit Black power in South Carolina. The plans include setting up local defense committees in cities around the country and organizing national days of action.
The case merits such focus because the employers and the state violated many fundamental rights, Fletcher said. They attacked workers’ rights to collective action in many forms, and specifically African American workers rights to a decent living and full political participation.
“What you have in South Carolina is a situation where the police, under the apparent leadership of the Attorney General, are clamping down on workers’ rights to peacefully protest,” Fletcher said. “If they don’t have that right, then effectively workers there don’t have any kind of rights to organize, regardless of what’s on the books.”
Fletcher also said the racial component of the struggle, especially because it is happening in South Carolina, home of the Confederate flag controversy, makes it particularly important.
“Local 1422 is a largely African American local, a very important segment of the Charleston community,” he said. “It is significant that they are under attack because they are living proof that unionization is the best anti-poverty program ever created. You have workers with a decent standard of living precisely because they are unionized and organized. And I don’t think that fact escaped the attorney general or other anti-union forces in South Carolina.”
Riley also pointed out how important these union jobs are in the community.
“These longshore jobs are the only jobs in South Carolina where a Black can really move up from below poverty to a middle class standard of living in a short time if he comes out and applies himself,” Riley said. “It’s the only job where young blacks who may have gotten themselves in serious trouble early on in life and paid their dues to society, can get a second chance. We have so many stories like that.”
The longshore workers’ commitment to the community extended to political action, and that brought down attacks on union members’ democratic rights, Riley said.
“Our problems began when we started getting involved in state politics,” he said. “We were trying to be socially responsible to those around us. We can’t sit there and say ’We got ours, forget about everybody else. ’ So we wanted to start trying to put people in positions to change what’s going on in South Carolina.”
Labor helped elect the first Democratic governor in South Carolina in 12 years, who in turn nominated Riley to the State Ports Authority. The South Carolina Manufacturing Alliance and the state Chamber of Commerce went berserk and managed to pressure the governor into withdrawing Riley’s nomination. Republican state legislators then introduced a bill—dubbed the Kenneth Riley Bill—prohibiting union members from serving on state boards and commissions. Its proponents touted it as a way to reduce union influence in state politics—in a state where only 3.8 percent of the workers are in unions. The bill passed the House, but was killed in the state Senate.
Currently local defense committees for the Charleston 5 are being formed around the country. South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna DeWitt has requested all State Labor Federations to take the lead in the formation of these committees and urge their member unions and the Union Cities in their jurisdictions to get involved. The committees will try to bring in community organizations, civil rights groups, religious and academic institutions, and other political activists to help raise money for the defense fund and to be ready to take part in an international day of action when the criminal trial begins. They will also work to get media coverage of the issue and the local community’s response to the situation.
Cheques should be made out to the “Dockworkers Defense Fund” and sent to:
Campaign for Workers’ Rights in South Carolina
PO Box 21777
Charleston, SC 29413
USA
or to:
Dockworkers Defense Fund
910 Morrison Drive
Charleston, SC 29403
Attn: Robert J. Ford
USA
