From Sept. 28 to Oct. 3, 1997, something extraordinary took place in the Port of Oakland. A coalition of student and labor activists scored a resounding victory when they picketed a scab container ship, the NOL Neptune Jade, at Berth 23. This international solidarity action was undertaken to demand reinstatement for 500 locked out dockworkers in Liverpool, England, who have been fighting to get their jobs back for two years.
For four days, rank-and-file longshoremen and ship clerks from ILWU Locals 10 and 34 refused to cross the picket line. Finally, the Neptune Jade was forced to set sail cargo and all for what her owners hoped might be more hospitable shores. But longshore workers in Canadian and Japanese ports refused to work the struck containers. Later, the Neptune Jade was reportedly sold in Taiwan, with the scab cargo still on deck.
The Pacific Maritime Association (the coastwide bosses' association) has dragged the pickets into court with a lawsuit seeking damages, perhaps into the millions of dollars. They're using the legal process to force the defendants to name every individual and organization who walked the line at Berth 23, so they can victimize other workers, too.
And they haven't stopped there. Now they're attacking the ILWU and the whole labor movement by naming longshore union officers as defendants in the lawsuit. The right to set up a picket line and to honor one was and is at stake.
The attack by the bosses was compounded when Laney College - - a state funded community college-- was served as a defendant in the lawsuit by the PMA. Specifically the Laney College Labor Studies Department. A banner bearing the name of the group was used as an excuse by the PMA to in plead the Laney group into the lawsuit.
Shamefully, the Laney did not assign legal counsel to the student group. Clearly, this is what the PMA wanted all along: to intimidate and silence the speech of all concerned. The Laney administration has thus far refused to turn over names of students as requested by the PMA.
At Laney College, the student government has directed the administration not to release any documents or names of members of student organizations. The administrations has unsuccessfully tried to get student groups to accept new stringent rules barring students or student organizations from participating in any off-campus actions in the name of Laney without permission from the College Laney must honor the student government demand to provide the Labor Studies Club and Program with legal representation (which they have so far failed to do). Labor Studies Department Chair Albert Lannon reports that the College has received hundreds of letters and email messages from faculty and other concerned people around the country protesting the failure of the College to vigorously fight this assault on free speech and academic freedom.
Let us not forget that it was a similar attack by the bosses which started the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in 1964. Then, students were protesting the Jim Crow law and the few places in San Francisco which still effectively discriminated by not serving black patrons. After a sit-in at the Sheraton Palace and other well publicized actions, the UC Regents came under heavy pressure from the Bay Area business community to rein in protests by UC students.
Just like the Peralta Administration, the otherwise powerful UC Regents caved in, prohibiting UC students from carrying out off-campus activities with any display using the UC name, without prior authorization. These measures triggered a storm of protests which are now part of history. The free speech movement and concept was born!
But the PMA is attacking Free Speech via its lawsuits. It, its allies and lawyers, seek to bring us back to the days of silence and fear. The UC students owe their freedom in part to the heroic struggle of the longshore who kicked out HUAC --the House un-American Activities Committee-in 1954.
Let's turn this attack by the bosses into another Free Speech Movement.
Send messages in protest to:
A.J. Harrison, Chancellor
Peralta Com. College
333 E.8th. Street
Oakland Ca. 94607
Pacific Maritime Association
500 12th. Street
Oakland Ca. 94612
Managing Partner
Lillick and Charles
2 Embarcadero Center
Suite 2600
San Francisco 94111-3996
