Do free speech and the rights of workers, and thus the constitutional liberties of all Americans, have any meaning in the era of globalization? We are about to find out.
For four days in the fall of 1997 more than a hundred community, labor and student activists sustained a picket line in the port of Oakland against the containership Neptune Jade. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) honored that picket line and the ship's British cargo was not unloaded. This action was part of an international campaign in support of 500 dockworkers in Liverpool, England, who were fired from their jobs in 1995 for themselves honoring a picket line at one of the last union ports in Britain. After leaving Oakland, the Neptune Jade was again successfully boycotted by dockworkers in Vancouver, Canada, then in Yokohama and Kobe, Japan.
Now some of the Oakland demonstrators and the ILWU--a union with a proud tradition of international labor solidarity, most famously against the apartheid regime of South Africa and the military dictatorship of Chile-- are targets of lawsuits that aim to crush such acts of solidarity, once and for all. The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), representing international shipowner conglomerates, is suing picketers for damages that could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and has previously sued the union for millions of dollars for similar actions in other ports.
Now the PMA is borrowing a page from the McCarthyite witchhunts of the 1950's. It has demanded that defendants "name names" of all other participants in the protest and reveal all of their past union and political affiliations. It has demanded union meeting minutes, videos, job dispatch orders, hard drives, floppy disks, e-mail, faxes, letters, diaries-the list goes on and on. The shipowners have already won a federal injunction compelling the union to cross solidarity picket lines in the future.
This is nothing less than a political dragnet by global firms and their high-priced lawyers to punish those who exercise free speech and to intimidate others from participating in future acts of solidarity and conscience.
At 8:00 A.M. on February 26, in front of PMA's City Center offices (500-12th St., Oakland) rally participants will protest the multinational shipowners' effort to stifle democratic and trade union rights by abusing the legal process. They will demand that the Pacific Maritime Association drop its lawsuits against the Neptune Jade defendants and the ILWU. Then protesters will march to the California Superior Court (12th and Alice Sts.), where they will call on Judge Henry Needham to dismiss the frivolous lawsuit under California's anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law, which affords protection against corporate denial of First Amendment rights. (The hearing is set for March 3.) From there, protesters will march to nearby Laney College for a campus rally in support of the Labor Studies Club which was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Featured speakers are: Albert Lannon, head of Laney College Labor Studies Program, Jerry Brown, Oakland mayoral candidate; Bobby Morton, Liverpool docker; Julian Garcia, Gen. Sec. Coordinadora, dockworkers union of Spain; Alexander Cockburn, writer; James Spinoza, V.P., ILWU; Chuck Mack, Pres., Joint Council #7, Teamsters; and Jack Henning, past head of Cal. Fed., AFL-CIO.
ENDORSERS
Mumia Abu-Jamal, author and death row prisoner
Alameda County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Tony Benn, Labour MP, Britain
Elaine Bernard, Exec. Dir., Harvard Trade Union Program*
Jerry Brown, former governor of California
California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO
Noam Chomsky, author and professor, M.I.T.*
Alexander Cockburn, author and journalist
Contra Costa County Central Labor Council
Angela Davis, author and professor, U.C. Santa Cruz*
Ignacio De La Fuente, Vice Mayor of Oakland
Ron Dellums, former U.S. Congressman
European Workers Conference for the Abrogation of the Maastricht Treaty
Asher Harer, '46 and '48 ILWU Local 10 Strike Com.
Jack Henning, Sec.-Treas. emeritus, Cal. Labor Fed. (AFL-CIO)*
Delores Huerta, Sec.-Treas., United Farm Workers*
Jesse Jackson
Ron Judd, Exec. Sec., King County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO,
Seattle*
Ronald Kuby, attorney and radio host
Tony Kushner, playwright, "Angels in America"
Ken Loach, filmmaker, "Land and Freedom"
Chuck Mack, Pres., Teamsters Joint Council #7, Oakland*
Shaun Maloney, org. '34 Minn. Teamsters strike, past Pres. ILWU Local
19, Seattle*
Manning Marable, author and professor, Columbia University*
Maritime Union of Australia, Central NSW Branch
Doreen McNally, Women of the Waterfront, Liverpool
Brian McWilliams, Int. Pres., ILWU
Robert Meeropol, Exec. Dir., Rosenberg Fund for Children*
Dave Morgan, Nat. Pres., New Zealand Seafarers' Union*
Jim Nolan, Chair, Merseyside Port Shop Stewards Committee, Liverpool
Ken Paff, Nat. Org., Teamsters for a Democratic Union*
John Pilger, award-winning British author
Victor Rabinowitz, attorney and author
Edward W. Said, author and professor, Columbia University*
San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO
San Mateo Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Arthur Scargill, Nat. Union of Mineworkers, Britain*
Susan Sontag, author
Alice Walker, author
Leonard Weinglass, attorney and author
Cornel West, author and professor, Harvard University*
JoAnn Wypijewski, senior editor, The Nation magazine*
*for identification purposes only
THE DEFENDANTS INCLUDE THE LANEY COLLEGE LABOR STUDIES CLUB AND PROGRAM, THE PEACE & FREEDOM PARTY, THE GOLDEN GATE CHAPTER OF THE LABOR PARTY, THE INTERNATIONAL LONGSHORE AND WAREHOUSE UNION, AND A NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS. IN ADDITION TO THE PMA, THE PLAINTIFFS INCLUDE YUSEN TERMINALS , INC. AND CENTENNIAL STEVEDORING SERVICES. HEARINGS IN THE FEDERAL AND STATE LAWSUITS ARE NOW IN PRE-TRIAL DISCOVERY.
