September 8, 1997
by Steve Zeltzer
International Committee For The Victory of The Liverpool Dockers and the
Labor Video Project
Minutes before a scheduled West Coast Longshore work stoppage in solidarity with the fired Liverpool dockers, unionist gathered in front of the San Francisco British Consulate to demand that the Blair government rehire the fired dockers.
They were joined in the rally by striking BART unionists. Ladeborah Higgs, a BART station agent and member of ATU 1555 spoke in solidarity and called for support for their own strike to end the two tier contract system at the Bay Area Rapid Transit. She pointed out that the two tier pay system meant that BART workers doing the exact same job faced a pay difference of nearly $7,000 and this had to end.
Also speaking in solidarity with the Liverpool Dockers was Bob Blanchet, an International Representative of the International Brotherhood Of Teamsters. Blanchet pointed out that a subcontractor of grocery warehousemen in the South Bay was seeking to break the Teamsters Union and the company was also based in England. He called for support for their possible strike as well as giving greetings to the Liverpool dockers.
Also speaking in solidarity was Paul Abrams, a SF Labor Council delegate from Teamster Local 15 of the Newspaper workers union and Robert Irminger, a member of the Inland Boatman's Union and the Golden Gate Chapter Of The Labor Party. Irminger said that the Labor Party was in full support of the Docker's struggle and saw the fight against privatization as important to all workers world wide. Alan Benjamin of the San Francisco Chapter of The International Liaison Committee also gave greetings and said that similar actions were being supported throughout the world by the ILC to fight privatization and deregulation. He also said that efforts were being made to bring some Liverpool Dockers to a Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference against NAFTA and Privatizations. on November 14-16 in San Francisco.
Also giving greetings was John Fogarty of the Irish American Unity Conference. Fogarty said as a member of Sign And Display Workers Local 510 and as a representative of the Unity Council he was giving greetings. It is all class struggle around the world Forgarty said from Ireland to the Liverpool docks.
Jack Heyman of the ILWU Local 10 and representing Bay Area Longshoreman thanked people for joining the protest and said that the West Coast Dockers would continue the struggle for the victory of the Liverpool dockers. The Port of Liverpool he said would continue to face action by dockers worldwide who will not stand for their union busting actions.
Jack Heyman and Liverpool Dockworker's supporter along with Bob Blanchet an International Representative of the Teamsters Unions had gone into the consulate earlier to meet with the Consulate officers and were told that they were not interested in meeting.
In the past, the Consulate General and the Deputy Consulate had agreed to meet labor unionists on the issue of the fired Liverpool dockers.
Heyman pointed out that under the Tory government they were allowed to meet with the Consulate but the action of the Consulate under the Blair government was another example of the role of the Labor Party.
Following the rally, the unionists and Liverpool dock worker supporters marched along Market street chanting in support of the Liverpool Dockers and the BART Strikers. Their chants of Victory of the BART strikers and the Liverpool Dockers filled the streets at rush hour. They also joined a contingent of BART strikers at the Montgomery street station and gave solidarity greetings.
It was clear to all the supporters that the fight of the BART strikers to end the two tier wage system and the struggle of the Liverpool dockers to get their jobs back and defeat the privatization were part and parcel of the same struggle world wide.
At a stopwork meeting of ILWU Local 10 at 7:00 PM, ILWU longshoremen discussed the importance of solidarity with the Liverpool dockers and the fact that they themselves face the danger of privatization from ports in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Stockton and Oakland with non-union contractors opening up or seeking to get contracts without any use of union labor.
A television report was also shown on Channel 2 of the dock stoppage in solidarity with Liverpool and footage of the Women Of Waterfront picketing in front of the Merseyside Docks and Harbour container port in Feb 96.
The call of the Liverpool dockers is being heard loud and clear in San
Francsico.
