(This letter was originally distributed in March, then later it appeared on the front page of an undated glossy ILA News Report Special Issue in April - JH)
To: ILA Membership
From: John Bowers, President
Re: Charleston Five
Dear Sisters and Brothers
All of us are aware of the courageous and valiant efforts made by our fellow members of the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO, in the port of Charleston S. C. last January when they engaged in a protest against Nordana Lines after the company hired non-union workers to replace them. Led by members of Charleston ILA Local 1422, this peaceful protest was disrupted and turned violent when more than 600 riot police began using clubs and tear gas against our membership. The ugly aftermath of this confrontation between ILA members and police is that five of those protestors, now known as the Charleston Five, are facing criminal charges in relation to the protest.
Much has been written about the International’s response and assistance to the Charleston Five so I want to clarify the events of the past 14 months and our plans to aid these brave ILA members.
When Nordana Lines first made the wrong decision to replace ILA members’ jobs with scab labor, I held a series of meetings with officials from the International Transport Workers Federation in London, including David Cockcroft, General Secretary; Kees Marges, Dockers Section Secretary and David Cotton, Secretary, Special Seafarers Department. The ITF is a worldwide labor organization representing more than six million transport workers in 78 countries. I serve as one of three Vice Presidents from North America and am Chairman of the worldwide Dockers Section.
I traveled to London personally to ask ITF leadership to generate and promote International labor solidarity for the striking ILA members in Charleston to negotiate a settlement with the ILA. These meetings were successful as negotiations soon commenced with Nordana Lines and Benny Holland, President South Atlantic and Gulf District and Kenneth Riley, President ILA Local 1422. A successful contract was negotiated and the strike was ended.
It is sad to report that the ending of this labor dispute did not result in complete peace in the Port of Charleston. The Charleston Five still face a criminal trial which is set to begin shortly. Shortly after the riots and arrest of the Charleston Five, ILA Local 1422 established a Dockers Defense Fund in January 2000, to which I immediately made a personal contribution. The Charleston Five committee requested a contribution from the International. The matter was studied carefully by our International’s General counsel office who advised us that the ILA treasury could not be used for the Charleston Five legal defense fund. I wish this was not the case, but no matter how justified the cause may be, Robert Gleason, ILA Secretary Treasurer and I am ultimately responsible for protecting the ILA membership’s treasury.
Still, the ILA in the Port of Charleston can be certain that your International intends to rally behind the Charleston Five with all means – - financial and otherwise – - available to us. Last week, the ILA Executive Council approved the creation of an Educational Fund called IDEA [International Dockers Educational Association], which will be used to publicize the plight of the Charleston Five and organize nationwide and worldwide support for them.
I am compelled to comment here about an organization, the Workers Coalition, because this organization has solicited contributions for the Charleston Five from labor organizations in the United States and around the world. The International Executive Council, joined by the Executive of the Atlantic Coast and South Atlantic and Gulf Coast voted unanimously at separate meetings last week to condemn this body. This action was precipitated by the leadership of the Workers Coalition taking the International to Federal Court objecting to results of two case decisions made by your elected representatives.
The first challenged decision was made by the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District regarding eligibility to run for office, a decision which was affirmed by the International. The second involved the suspension of an ILA local officer for using the ILA’s registered logo to solicit contributions for the Workers Coalition, after charges were brought against him by a brother member of that local. After the International affirmed this local’s action to suspend this officer, filed a Federal lawsuit against your International. As far as I am concerned, the Workers Coalition is trying to operate as a union within a union. It will not work and I am grateful the International Executive Council and our two District Boards supported this position.
John Sweeney, the president of AFL-CIO, on whose Executive Council I am honored to serve, contacted me over concerns he and the Federation had about the Workers Coalition and its appeals for help. He and the leadership of other AFL-CIO affiliated unions were concerned whether their contributions were earmarked for the Charleston Five or the Workers Coalition. The ITF has also expressed both confusion and reservations about the workers Coalition and their appeals for contributions. In fact, the ITF recently instructed the International Longshore and Harbor Workers Union [ILWU] to direct its request for support of the Charleston Five through the office of the President ofILA.
I am announcing the creation of the ILA Defense fund, a fund to be managed by the International and for the benefit of the Charleston Five. I will be making appeals to ILA members and labor organizations in the United States and throughout the world to make voluntary personal contributions – - not union treasury money – – to the ILA Defense Fund, through the ILA.
Your ILA International and I have not been silent or inactive in rendering support for the Charleston Five, contrary to comments such as the ones made by Jack Heyman of the ILWU. In a recent internet newsletter piece, Mr. Heyman described me as the only weak link in the[Charleston Five] defense campaign. This is an ugly and false statement. The ILA is continuing to call upon worldwide labor, business and government contacts – - developed and strengthened over decades – - to bring a successful conclusion, with justice and honor, to the wrongly accused Charleston Five.
I hope this letter clearly demonstrates our position in this matter. I thank you for your continued support.
Fraternally,
John Bowers [signed] President
May 7, 2001
Dear Mr. Bowers:
From the beginning of the Charleston longshore struggle you have been silent. Now, your first public statement, your self-serving letter of March 28, 2001 to the ILA membership, appears full of slanders, distortions and omissions. Most ominously, by attacking union activists who are doing the yeoman’s work in the Charleston 5 defense campaign, your letter undermines the very labor defense which it claims to support. To those who walked the picket line in Charleston in the face of a massive police mobilization, you recklessly impugn base motives and deceptive practices, while sitting in the luxury of your office in New York’s financial district. Clearly, the intent of your letter is to undermine this growing workers’ defense campaign and whitewash your inaction.
As a rank-and-file working longshoreman active in the Charleston 5 campaign, I feel compelled to set the record straight. You objected to my characterization of you in my Bay Area defense campaign report of March 7, 2001, as the one “weak link” in the struggle. Yet, as president of the largest maritime union in North America, you refused a request from the embattled Charleston longshoremen to appeal to ILA locals and to other unions for financial contributions to their legal expenses. By your own admission, for 14 months you did nothing to aid the defense campaign except make a personal financial donation (of $1, 000) out of an annual salary totaling nearly $300,000. Your indefensible conduct is consistent with your betrayal of the strike by ILA’s defeated but determined Domino sugar workers and the raid against UNITE grocery store workers, both in New York City.
From the beginning you’ve hidden behind your lawyers’ sought and paid-for “advice” that the “ILA treasury could not be used for the Charleston Five legal defense fund. ” How is it that International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) members voted to contribute tens of thousands of dollars immediately and continue to do so? Proudly, rank-and-file members of the ILWU have walked the picket line in Charleston; organized defense committees to prepare for an international day of solidarity action with the Charleston Five; enlisted trade union support from our AFL-CIO Labor Councils; held fundraiser and educational events; galvanized international longshore support; had our officers send protest letters to Charles Condon, the South Carolina State Attorney General; for over one year we’ve had articles published regularly in our newspaper, The Dispatcher, informing our membership as the Charleston struggle has developed; invited Ken Riley, ILA Local 1422 president, to address our union meetings, Caucuses and Convention. Where have you and all the resources of the ILA International been? And when in the last 15 months have you been to Charleston to show your support? Will you be in Columbia, South Carolina on June 9th for the Charleston 5 rally?
You claim credit for securing an agreement for the Charleston locals last April, along with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), with Nordana shipping lines, one of the culprits. Yet, you omit the fact that Nordana was reluctant to negotiate and sign a contract until after the Coordinadora dockworkers’ union of Spain, affiliated to the International Dockworkers’ Council, boarded the M/V Skodsburg to tell the Captain that they weren’t going to handle scab-loaded cargo from Charleston. Meanwhile, Nordana ships, loaded by the same scab labor in Charleston, were being worked by ILA locals in U. S. ports, in part because you didn’t really back the struggle, calling it a “local issue”.
No, Mr. Bowers, maritime employers’ union-busting attacks through contract evasion, casualization of the workforce, privatization of the docks are wreaking havoc not only in Charleston, but in New Orleans (where only half the longshore workers are unionized), Houston and Philadelphia. Ports in Mexico, Britain and Brazil are only a short list of the most recently-fallen. It’s time to take your head out of the sand. This is a global problem! The exemplary stand by our Coordinadora brothers in Spain shows how we can successfully defend our unions against attacks from these multinationals with solidarity actions. Charleston can be the starting point.
Obviously, you’ve got a political ax to grind against the Longshore Workers’ Coalition, a group of ILA members and officials in the U. S. and Canada who are critical of your policies and who have been supportive of the Charleston longshore workers struggle. Unfortunately, two members of the Coalition have sued the ILA in court. They claim that if union democracy prevailed in the ILA, they would never have resorted to court action. One suit is for the right of a union member, Ken Riley’s brother Leonard, to run for union office and the other for the right of a union official to sign a letter, stating his union position for identification purposes only. Using the big business-controlled government whether through the courts or the police to intervene in labor’s internal affairs is neither a principled nor effective remedy. If you were really opposed to government intervention against unions, then you would have written a letter to South Carolina State Attorney General Condon condemning the police attack on the picket line and demanding he drop the charges against the Charleston 5. However, you don’t uphold that labor principle and are just using these two court suits as a hammer against the Longshore Workers’ Coalition. Clearly, political differences must be set aside to defend the ILA and the labor movement as a whole. As we say in the ILWU, “An injury to one is an injury to all. ”
You charge that the Longshore Workers’ Coalition has appealed to labor organizations for contributions to the Charleston 5. Then, without documentation and by mentioning the ITF and John Sweeney suggest by innuendo that donations may have gone to the Longshore Workers’ Coalition instead of the Charleston 5. This slander, to the extent that anyone believes this hogwash, can only serve to fracture the unity and integrity of the defense campaign.
From the beginning, you’ve been an obstacle to support for the Charleston 5. Now, you’ve magnanimously decided to set up an ILA Defense Fund “for the benefit of the Charleston Five”, controlled by you. Then, you belatedly created an Educational Fund called IDEA to publicize the plight of the Charleston Five. . . . months after AFL-CIO President John Sweeney initiated the Workers’ Rights Campaign in South Carolina to assist in the defense of the Charleston longshoremen. You seek to take over the finances and publicity of the defense campaign in order to strangle it because a victory for the Charleston 5 would be an embarrassment to you and a vindication of your critics. All contributions should continue to be sent directly to the Dockworkers’ Defense Fund in Charleston at the same address as ILA Local 1422.
You also disrespectfully and falsely state that the ITF “recently instructed the International Longshore and Harbor (sic) Workers Union (ILWU) to direct its support of the Charleston Five” to you. As president of the only other longshore union in North America, you should be able to state ILWU’s name correctly. As you well know, we took the name International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union when we left the ILA in 1937 because of a lack of union democracy and representation, a development that grew out of the militant 1934 West Coast Maritime Strike. We affiliated to the then-militant Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). We’ve recently changed our name to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to reflect the increased composition of women in our union. Moreover, neither the ITF nor any organization “instructs” the ILWU. The ILWU’s instructions comes from the rank and file through the decisions voted by democratically-elected delegates to Longshore Caucuses and Conventions.
The Charleston longshore defense campaign that has forged a closer bond between the rank and file of the ILWU and the ILA. At our last Longshore Caucus in March, ILA General Vice President Benny Holland thanked the ILWU for all it has done in support of the Charleston 5. He went on to say,“We work the same carriers. We work for the same stevedores. Separately, I think, they can play one against the other. They can take us on. But if we put our heads together, they can’t do that. If we can shut them down from Maine to Texas and from Seattle to L. A. or San Diego. . . . then we’ve got them. ” Riley concurred with those sentiments wholeheartedly.
At the same Caucus we voted to assess our members $2 a month for the Charleston Five defense fund and most significantly, voted for a day of international solidarity actions – in conjunction with the ILA, the IDC and the ITF – in ports around the world on the first day of the trial. The Charleston 5 face apartheid-like court-imposed conditions, being under house arrest from 7 P. M. to 7 A. M.
Mr. Bowers, the eyes of the world’s waterfront are on you. Will you join with us in calling for the ILA to participate in this international day of solidarity action?
Jack Heyman
