The lawsuit arises from an action that happened in September 1997. The Neptune Jade, a container ship loaded by non-union labor at a port administered by the same company that had fired the Liverpool dockers, sailed into the Port of Oakland on the second anniversary of the dockers' sacking. ILW'U members did not cross the line for three days and the ship eventually left without being worked. It received similar receptions in Vancouver, British Columbia and at two ports in Japan.
This act of international solidarity was so effective the PNIA decided to sue the pickets for hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial losses it claims it incurred because of the action in an effort to harass them and intimidate future would-be demonstrators. Named in the complaint were IBU San Francisco Region Chair Robert Irminger, Local 10 Executive Board member Jack Heyman, the Golden Gate chapter of the Labor Party, the Laney College Labor Studies Club and the Peace and Freedom Party.
At a hearing March 10 Alameda County Superior Court Judge Henry Needham, Jr. threw out the complaints against Heyman and the Labor Party, citing their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. But the court allowed the PMA to pursue Irminger. The Laney College Labor Studies Club and the Peace and Freedom Party were never served.
In its continuing quest to find more defendants to hold responsible for its losses, the PNIA subpoenaed all documents the ILWU International and Locals 10 and 34 have "that relate or refer to the demonstrating" or to the organizing or planning of the demonstrating at the Yusen Terminal in Oakland where the Neptune Jade berthed from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, 1997.
Locals 10 and 34 testified they had no such documents so the hearing Aug. 12 focused on those held by the International and The Dispatcher.
