Israeli ship blockaded in San Francisco, dockworkers refuse to cross picket

Sorry to pick nits, but the Swedish action preceded this by weeks.

More to the point, this is a very interesting development. Do the named organizations support BDS?

That'll be great. Thanks in advance. :-)

Just a quick glance at the players in the above article shows how this "action" was nothing but an exercise in media-driven vacuity. A better definition would label it as a pseudo-protest by the Popular Front of pro-Democratic Party Labor Councils from Alameda and San Francisco Counties and the Stalinists in ANSWER. Also, throw in all the usual suspects of sectarian leftists of the Trot and liberal variety and all their so-called "labor" front groups.

Here are some reasons why it was not only not radical, but wasn't even significant at the level of symbolism:

1. ANSWER declared "victory" in a press release at noon, even though the ship didn't arrive unitl 6:00 p.m.

2. Everything, literally EVERYTHING, was pre-arranged with the consent of the Oakland pigs.

3. Following on #2, ANSWER had their own security goons who worked closely with the pigs, including enforcing specific demands to police the protesters. Here's what a comrade observed:

I also listened in while a cop pointed at the anarchists and told one of the labor leaders that all the ANSWER security was on board with enforcing a "no mask" rule because "those people aren't here for your cause, they're just here to cause trouble."

4. The involvement by rank-and-file port workers was from nil to non-existent. Only 3 or 4 members of the longshore union, ILWU Local 10, had any part in the planning. No one from any of the other maritime sectors at the port participated in any way.

5. The refusal to cross the picket line didn't happen. An arbitrator ruled it was unsafe, allowing the ILWU workers to go home with pay. Many did even this begrudgingly because there was no guarantee that they'd get paid at the overtime rate for working on Sunday.

6. Once the work order was canceled, ANSWER still tried to get people to march in circles for the TV cameras even though it was pointless.

7. ANSWER's deal with the pigs and management was only for the two shifts on that day (Sunday June 20th) and only intended to delay the ship for 24 hours. The spectacle organizers even claimed they were doing that to "help" workers and make sure they could return to work the next day. Here's another account from the protest by the same comrade:

But Xxxxx was there and said that he and some others wanted to come back for the next shift at 5 am and continue setting up pickets as long as the Zim ship was trying to dock. He was shut down by the ANSWER leader who said they had decided on a 24-hour picket at a previous meeting. I imagine a major reason mainstream labor supported the action was because they knew (with ANSWER's guarantee) that it would be tightly circumscribed and enforced by ANSWER security and the left trade union bureaucracy.

So the lesson is that whenever a Popular Front of ANSWER goons join with union officials endorsing things that won't piss off their Democratic Party allies, we're going to have a lame and toothless action that looks good when it gets spun by the corporate media.

And a CORRECTION: it happened across the Bay at the Port of Oakland NOT San Francisco.

I agree with H...

What is more troubling is the IWW's trumpeting of this. I thought the IWW was at least based on class, but here they are parroting the Stalinists in regards to supporting the Palestinian "people" (including both capitalist and workers) against the Israelis (which includes both capitalists and workers).

Hoorah for the (usual, Stalinist) Popular Front! Forward on the Path of (usual, Stalinist) Anti-Imperialism!

This was not an action undertaken with the principles of BDS (itself problematic, as discussed on the dedicated thread); it was an ideologically driven publicity circus with virtually no outreach among the outfits who have been in the forefront of local BDS/Palestinian solidarity activity (also problematic).

The tight control over ANSWER-permitted posturing and slogans meant that these Left assholes accomplished what they always do: divide the workers among the good ones and the bad ones instead of attacking capital.

Critical support is way too good for them; how about reflexive skepticism, if not outright antagonism? They have it toward us, why not just engage in some tit-for-tat instead of tailing after them like good little sub-leftists, or some species of moralist? Disgusting.

[Pulled by FNB]

When I heard that it was prearranged that the picket would only be up for one day -- in order to "help" the workers be able to alienate their labor-power on the docks the next day -- I voted with my feet and stayed home.

And I guess I'm out of the activist loop. I didn't have the foggiest ideas what BDS was until I did a google search.

A similar anti-war protest happened along the same stretch of the Port of Oakland on May 19, 2007 and about 100 picketers showed up in the exact same way, except there were no media cameras (the cops blocked the access road and only those willing to walk 3/4 mile could access the port gates). That time the arbitrator didn't rule that it was a health and safety hazard and the rank-and-file longshore workers took a vote and decided to honor the picket line anyway. The same happened with the next shift in the afternoon.

In the earlier case, the lack of spectacular bourgeois media forced the picketers to interact with the longshore workers and may have swayed them. They forfeited a day's pay and refused to cross the picket line. That would have been impossible with all the narcissistic egos posing for this past Sunday's cameras.

And as someone mentioned in a personal e-mail, the deal between ANSWER/union bureaucrats and the cops and management made it easier for the arbitrator to rule in favor of the protesters, knowing that it was a limited and symbolic action and the Israeli ship would be able unload the next day.

Week long blockade of handling Israeli goods in all Swedish ports.

In swedish, but can be put through google translate.

http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/blockad-mot-israeliska-varor-1.1127094

I think that Hieronymous gives of important explanation of what is essentially a stunt. As he says it was vacuous and wasn't even up to the level of symbolism. I had the same feeling about the "siege-breaking" Gaza flotilla.

This sort of blockage "action" well described by Hieronymous, mirrors the "action" of the British Unite union which, in the wake of the flotilla has threatened to cut ties with Israeli firms. The Unite union was hand in glove with the Labour government, a government that continued to provide money, arms and training to Fatah gangsters in order to repress the population and who, in the EU and UN, supported the Israeli siege of Gaza.

These sort of "actions" are worse than useless and are simply a con trick on the working class.

All those Turkish and Palestinian flags and the placards with absurd slogans ("Gaza is Warsaw" was my favorite) makes it clear what kind of organizers and participants were involved...

A shame there wasn't a genuine working-class action, instead. I'm disappointed. :-/

ncwob, you leave out that iww.org is calling the action an:

"Historic Victory at Oakland Port..."

"Historic Victory"? I would say that is trumpeting. My guess is the Industrial Worker newspaper will also have a similar article. Wanna bet?

It's hardly slagging off the IWW to ask why class collaborationist politics are being spread in it's name. It's a sincere and legitimate question. I have respect for the IWW's class positions - that's why I'm troubled.

Also agree with H. I wonder if the ILWU is one of those places where the 2 trotskyists in the actual union drag the meetings out until late at night so that once everyone has left they can pass all kinds of resolutions about things that the rest of the people have no clue about (this is called "capturing the union for the revolution" i believe)

Hieronymous, do you have any links from other people exposing this action as the sham it was?

-soyons tout

First we need to define who ANSWER is. They used to be the front for the International Action Committee, which itself was a front for the Workers World Party -- ya know, those Stalinist nutcases who are still stridently pro-North Korea (bringing juche to the left!) and were the last pro-Albania holdouts in the West, supporting the Hoxha regime until the bitter end. And no ncwob, the rank-and-file aren't good cadre with bad leaders, they're dupes who actively promote some of the most reactionary politics and vile forms of nationalism while working closely with the pigs at every demo that they lead. As I've posted elsewhere on libcom, ANSWER protest marshals have regularly snitched militants, particularly anarchists, out to the pigs -- I saw it with my own eyes at various anti-war demos since militant street actions in San Francisco as far back as 1991. Perhaps others can post their experiences with these Stalinist goons going even further back.

Lately there's been a break within WWP and the Party for Socialism and Liberation came out of it in control of ANSWER on the West Coast. There's nothing complex about this: if ANSWER is involved, the police have an active role and have given their approval to the "action." And ANSWER security act as an auxiliary to the police. Again to you, ncwob, what's debatable about that?

As I noted above, I thought the action at the Port of Oakland was disingenuous and didn't want to condone it with my presence. My comrades who did attend almost all left immediately when they saw that it was a media prank.

Here's what another comrade wrote, defining how this was at best an act of substitutionism:

Great victory today????

Uh, ok. Lets reflect. Yes people did show up, thats good and the work order was cancelled, thats also good. A picket line???? Thats a stretch. What role did the port workers play in this action? We only know it was minimum at best. Is this OK? Does that not matter? The port workers labor-power bring in a billion dollars worth of commodities a day. The times the workers had shutdowns for one day, global capital has felt the effect. But the left cannot mobilize such workers because it has professional protest groups coupled with other left groups implanted in union officialdom to take action for the workers. Is the bay area left covering the entrances without any port workers a real picket line? If it is, thats a stretch of the definition. Once there is a merger between the revolutionary left (as a program) and the workers struggle (beyond economic demands and unionist logic) then we can see real struggles develop that can threaten the global system of capital along with challenging zionism. But the left has a long way to go, and if it doesnt acknowledge this and it assumes that we're there already, then its reproducing illusions in its own limited position. The left needs to face reality. In '04 the port truckers had a wildcat strike. Because the teamsters were manipulating behind the scenes, most of the left tailed the union officialdom, or, on the hand, the anarchist brought food. There was a lack of orientation towards the actual point of struggle and a lack of relationships with the workers to even begin to discuss that point.

What would today been like if the workers called for the strike, and the union officialdom and the left had to tail that process? The action would have had a thousands times more energy and business papers around the world would have commented about it in worry. Consciousness would penetrated through out the working class without one newspaper being sold.

The political weapon of labor-power is something not seen for decades. That does not mean we should forget about its potential power. May 1 '06 gives us a glimpse of its power.

Xxxxxx

This is from a Bay Area listserv that attempted to gather class struggle militants for the actions around education on March 4th. Here's my listserv response to the above:

I agree with Xxxxxx as well, but come on! A victory? For what? Symbolic activism? Media coverage? Fuck that!

At best it was a very minor success based on a technicality: an arbitrator decided for "health and safety" reasons longshore workers couldn't cross the picket lines. And as some of you have pointed out, this was more about the corporate media -- our class enemies -- than it was about militant working class agency. That is because regarding the latter, there was none.

In 2004 at the APL gate of the port, the "direct action" was wildcat militancy of the troqueros in an 8-day blockade until the class collaborationist activists intervened, pizzas in hand, and convinced them to end the strike and negotiate. The latter's "direct action" was guerrilla theater for TV cameras.

And Xxxxx's declaration of victory was at 12:35 p.m. Had the ship even arrived yet? Come on, this isn't even won -- even at the level of symbolism -- until the ship steams out of the San Francisco Bay UNLOADED. Let's be honest comrades.

For Working Class Power & Agency,

[Hieronymous]

And I'm pretty sure I know, and respect, the Wobbly who wrote the account of the action that ncwob posted. As much as I consider him a class struggle comrade, it's clear that he got sucked into the collective delusion of the Transport Workers' Solidarity Committee as part of their game of footsie with the real class collaborationists, the SF and Alameda County Central Labor Councils. If the latter 2 groups of bureaucrats were on board with the event, we can be sure that the leaders of the local Democratic Party were 100% on board too.

In the historical references to what has happened before at Bay Area ports, in this case the Port of San Francisco before everything moved across the Bay to Oakland over the last 40 years, there are some erroneous accounts of previous actions. In 1984 it was not a picket line that blocked the unloading of ships from South Africa to protest against Apartheid, but the agency of the longshore rank-and-file -- something completely lacking in last Sunday's media event.

The following is an account forwarded by the daughter of one of the main actors in the 1984 refusal, who herself apparently bought into the illusion that this stunt was "historic":

There were a number of us present at this picket line, who were also involved in the anti-Apartheid actions on the docks in the 1980's.

Here's a correction about what happened in 1984 from my dad, who I had the great honor to walk another historic picket line with this Fathers Day:

"A 'picket line' played no role in the 11 day boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley at pier 80 in San Francisco in 1984. The large number of people who assembled twice daily at the pier gates were there in support of the longshoremen who were twice daily dispatched to the ship, went to the ship, looked at the South African cargo, told supervisors that they were refusing to handle the cargo and then went home. This was a longshore workers initiated and implemented action. A picket line is set up to prevent workers or scabs from entering the work site. This was NOT the scenario in 1984.

In 1986, when longshore ILWU Local 10 was still under a federal court injunction against taking concerted union action on apartheid cargo a large group of anti-apartheid activists blockaded the entrance to pier 80 when another Nedlloyd Line vessel was docked with South African cargo. For two shifts the blockaders fought off police attacks. The contract area arbitrator ruled that the longshoremen were justified in not entering the pier on the basis of the "health and safety" provisions of the contract. On the second day the blockade was broken by Mayor Dianne Feinstein's Tac Squad who arrested over a hundred demonstrators including myself, ending the blockade.

I was one of the two longshoremen along with Brother Leo Robinson who were in overall charge of implementing the 1984 boycott action by longshoremen. We were singled out as the two main "co-conspirators" for the action in the Federal Court injunction which ended the strike. It was my motion which was adopted as amended by the Local membership which authorized the boycott.

Perpetuation of this myth that longshoremen did not work the South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley for 11 days because they were prevented from going to work by a picket denigrates the courage and devotion to international solidarity expressed by the entire San Francisco longshore local who knew that what they were doing was in violation of the Taft-Hartley "slave labor" law and the contract with the employers. Ships Clerk Local 34 also played a key role in that illegal strike action.

Let's not rewrite history!

Howard Keylor (retired ILWU Local 10)"

And as for rank-and-file members of ILWU Local 10 pissed off at being denied overtime pay, I was formerly in ILWU Local 6 so I know some of these workers. The reputation of the ILWU being "radical" or even "progressive" is another myth. But yes, there are a handful of militants who push high-profile media-savvy actions, like invoking the "work-stop" meeting clause in their contracts to shut down 29 ports on the West Coast on May Day 2008.

As I mentioned above, there was a similar picket in May 2007 that was denied a health and safety excuse by the arbitrator and the assembled workers had to vote to honor the picket line. It was fucking tense and there were some near fist fights. But because there was absolutely no media there, the protesters and longshore workers were thrust together and had to talk with each other without the glare of lighting for the TV cameras and the ego posturing and mediations that the press inevitably brings. I talked with a couple dozen rank-and-file longshore workers, who were mostly African American while nearly all of the protesters where white. They said they felt "used" by the agitation of those handful of militants in their union who don't seem interested in their input. I went to the Transport Workers' Solidarity Committee planning meetings for the 2007 action and there were never more than 2 or 3 active longshore workers. It was usually a collection of the usual suspects of left activists, although I'd say the average age was above my own, somewhere in the mid-50s.

My comrades who attended the planning meetings for this past Sunday's event said it was even worse, because it also included Palestinian and Islamacist nationalists who had no class politics -- or were even hostile to them. And the ripeness for media attention drew in an assortment of politicos across the spectrum, from liberals to Stalinists, all joined by an adherence to activistism.

Hieronymous

Back in the 80s there were some demos in San Francisco that I participated in where the WWP/All People's Congress (their other front group from then) goons were involved. At one a monitor (soft cop) pointed out a flag-burning comrade to other monitors, who then pointed her out to the cops, all the while preventing her from retreating behind the metal police barricades. When I confronted the monitor, telling him that cops didn't belong at our protest, some Party hierarch got in my face, yelling that I had no right to criticize the monitor since he was in the FMLN!

At another one against a fundraiser for some Contras, militant protesters were physically prevented from returning behind the police barricade during a mounted police charge with lots of mace. Monitors from APC pushed and knocked over many folks trying to get away from the cops. One organizer jumped on the back of a protester and clawed at his face screaming "You're ruining our demonstration!"

Yet another example was at a demo outside the Israeli embassy in 1985. The WWP/APC goons were there with their PFLP enforcers, and were handing out a flyer with approved slogans. The Trots of the Sparticist League (no favorites of mine) had their own megaphone and their own slogans, which, for all the Sparts' myriad problems, were at least nominally internationalist. The Palestinian and American Stalinists didn't like the anti-nationalist flavor of those slogans, and asked the cops to intervene and keep the Sparts out of the picket, which they were only too happy to do. The cops "protected" the PFLP picket from the Sparts, and then when the cops tired of that they informed the Sparts that they were an illegal assembly and had to disperse or face arrest. Of course they left.

Members of WWP, IAC, ANSWER, PSL (ad nauseum) are not to be trusted, supported, or excused. Rank and file, hierarchs, what does it matter? Bad politics are bad politics. Dupes are just as dangerous as ideologues.

While I may personally and politcally agree with all of the usual criticms above, the ship was not unloaded. I think that was the goal?

I understood that the unloading was delayed by one day.

I understood that the unloading was delayed by one day.

And in Sweden how long? At a minimum it cost ZIM a few hundred thousands

syndicalist,

It was delayed by 2 work shifts. So prob. a couple tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the cargo.

But what was gained in working class consciousness? Does this action stop a specific attack on Gazan working class? Does it make Israeli workers closer to their Palestinian sisters and brothers?

In my opinion it is opportunist and divides the two working classes further. Opportunist because the cargo does represent a specific issue - weapons being sent, etc. The cargo was simply cargo from Israel. Could have been oranges, coloring books, or flash drives. How will this actually aid the workers in Gaza? In my opinion it will aid their ruling class, represented by either Hamas or Fatah - who can say 'see "we" can motivate the world to act in your favor, support us'.

It's kind of like celebrating gang warfare because during the revolution gun knowledge might be needed.

The few of us who stand for internationalism need to stand up for it. We need to educate and advocate for it. Yeah, it's pretty lame right now, but it's what we can and should do.

in 2007, around the time of the action at the Port of Oakland that I mention above, I read in the Wall Street Journal that when a ship is delayed in a port in the U.S. it costs $30,000 a day. So FNB is exactly right.

fnbrill

But what was gained in working class consciousness? Does this action stop a specific attack on Gazan working class? Does it make Israeli workers closer to their Palestinian sisters and brothers?

Do you have any operative suggestion as to how one would go about doing this? On the ground, in Israel, this seems farther away than ever. And perhaps it's a bit unreasonable to expect Palestinian workers in Gaza, and their sympathizers abroad, to wait for the Israeli working class to make the transition from viewing them as subhuman scum and a threat to their very lives to accepting them as brothers in a war against Capital?

fnbrill, I've no political disagreement with what yo're saying. And I've no real disagreement with the thrust of what Tojiah says either. I guess all this and that about ANSWER and those shits don't really interest me. And I guess, at times, I'm not against symbolic action's.

And in Sweden how long?

A week and through activity by the dockworkers themselves.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100623/wl_mideast_afp/swedenisraelmideastconflictgazashipping/

Syndicalist, I know we don't disagree on this and meant to clarify my post a bit as re-reading it seems much more directed at you than I meant.

I'm also not against symbolic actions, per se, but think we should be talking about pushing working class issues instead of nationalist ones. By discussing this here perhaps next time, or the time after, that those IWWs (or WSAs, or WSPs, or....) participating in the planning will raise working class interests...

Here's some ideas off top of my head:

1) Major issue w/ Palestinian workers is the ability to travel freely even within their own 'territories'. blockade ships with the demand to open travel for Palestinian workers. If addressed to workers as workers would less likely be coopted by nationalist interests.

2) Palestinians, "Israeli Arabs", Druze, Beduins as well as Israeli jews of color are the laborers w/in Israel, can they be brought together somehow, common interests as workers? Joint protests, etc.

3) blockade arms shipments to Israel?

fnbrill

But what was gained in working class consciousness? Does this action stop a specific attack on Gazan working class? Does it make Israeli workers closer to their Palestinian sisters and brothers?

Tojiah

Do you have any operative suggestion as to how one would go about doing this? On the ground, in Israel, this seems farther away than ever. And perhaps it's a bit unreasonable to expect Palestinian workers in Gaza, and their sympathizers abroad, to wait for the Israeli working class to make the transition from viewing them as subhuman scum and a threat to their very lives to accepting them as brothers in a war against Capital?

I agree with what fnbrill writes in the post above.

In response to what Tojiah wrote, I think we need to be clear that groups like ANSWER treat the Israeli and U.S. working class as "subhuman scum" as well, making them directly responsible for all the barbarity of imperialism. This is nonsense that in effect denies that we even live in a class-divided society.

Groups being praised by the demonstrators in Oakland, like Hezbollah and Hamas, have track records of assassinating secular working class militants.

We need to always advocate for class struggle, based on internationalism, despite the overwhelming obstacles in places like Israel and Palestine. Which also means refusing to condone Popular Front coalitions like the one in Oakland that joined Palestinian, Turkish and other Islamicist nationalists, ANSWER's Stalinist protest police, the sectarian left, pro-Democratic Party labor councils and their allies in local elected political office.

I have no interest in symbolic actions, but I am stridently opposed to something billing itself as being based on working class agency when in truth it's a media stunt, done with the full consent of management, the police, and the local ruling class. And here we need to be clear that with the attack on the Gaza flotilla, the U.S. state is attempting to moderate its unconditional support for Israel and will tolerate a mild wrist-slapping with symbolic actions like the one at the Port of Oakland.

And I defy any of you to locate any internationalists in the above 2 photos. If the cranes weren't in the background, it just as easily could be a crowd for a World Cup match.

Wow...I would like to respond to this as I am a member of the ILWU (Marine Division-IBU) and was peripherally involved with the planning of this action. I have my own critiques and was personally insulted a few times during the planning...which I will go into.

But I would like to briefly defend the nature of these ILWU "shut down" actions. I think they are good first of all because they enforce on a semi-regular basis some of the more radical elements of the longshore contract. It also (and I know this sounds strange but...) keep people "in the practice" of not crossing picket lines. It allows for the membership to become educated about global issues and see themselves as an integral part of global capitalism and commerce. While I agree that most of the members of local 10 are not "radical" by any stretch of the imagination all members have to go through an "educational" program where they learn about the history of the union and come out of this program with a heightened sense of what it means to be a union member, understand why labor and (to a certain extent) political actions are important to the strength of the union and the strategic importance of their union globally.

Also, factually, the ILWU May 1st shutdown against the Iraq war was not a "stop work" meeting. The longshore caucus voted at their yearly convention to take May 1st off as a day of protest against the war in Iraq, they asked their employers for the day off as a "stop work" meeting (which they are allowed according to their contract once a month for a union meeting), their request was denied...there was much hemming a hawing by the leadership. But the union wanted to maintain their position that they were taking the day off because the Longshore Caucus is the highest decision making body in their division of the ILWU, even above the international leadership. So, despite being DENIED a stop work meeting on May first they continued with the coast wide shut down in violation of their employer's (and the international union's) wishes. Those are the facts and I was there during the entire process.

I wasn't particularly pleased with the process for this action. It was extremely tightly controlled by ANSWER. I am a member of the Transport Worker Solidarity Committee (along with the IWW member being mentioned) as well as with other non-aligned radicals mostly from other ILWU locals in the Bay Area. I went to only one meeting (because funny enough I wasn't told about the other meetings) and at this large "public" meeting there was no space made for anyone else to get involved, everything was mandated from the top down by ANSWER members. They also insulted several people who were in the room who helped organize the 2003 Port of Oakland Direct Action to Stop the War protest where several people were shot and assaulted by the Oakland PD. We were told by ANSWER that they would not "let that kind of protest happen again"...as if the protesters were at fault and not the OPD. At the meeting the only option they gave for getting involved was joining the security team in order to "maintain control" of the protest. I was asked if I would join security...laughing I said that I wasn't interested in joining the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution :)

I agree that the organizing of this protest was fucked up. But the goal was achieved...shutting down the longshore shift for 24 hours and halting the loading of the vessel. I think these kind of actions, while not the "organic" wildcat strikes many people paint them as, are important and its important for people to support the ILWU's ability to enforce/manipulate their contracts in a way that they can support political causes like these.

Fuck...I could go on more...but I'm sure "H" will jump into the fray...I'll post more later...

Thanks for that G. it clarifies some aspects of the ILWU position.

I agree that these kinds of "spectacular" protests can be useful for expanding the idea of what a union can be/do for the rank and file. Thanks for the perspective, Gurley, I'd like to hear more.

Clarifications...

A better definition would label it as a pseudo-protest by the Popular Front of pro-Democratic Party Labor Councils from Alameda and San Francisco Counties and the Stalinists in ANSWER.

They passed resolutions at the labor councils, which everyone does for everything...its like a rubber stamp in San Francisco. The Labor Councils had nothing to do with this protest.

Everything, literally EVERYTHING, was pre-arranged with the consent of the Oakland pigs

Very true

The involvement by rank-and-file port workers was from nil to non-existent. Only 3 or 4 members of the longshore union, ILWU Local 10, had any part in the planning. No one from any of the other maritime sectors at the port participated in any way.

This is and always has been one of the big failings of the radicals in the ILWU, is that they very often do not have a significant base of support from within the union. But, part of the "game" of pulling off these actions is that they are "community picketlines" NOT ILWU job actions. For anyone from local 10 to participate in the picketline would defeat the purpose of having the picketline and possibly put them in violation of the contract. That's why you wont see any ILWU members in the picket.

There were other maritime union members there (I was there haha) but your right. The leftists and radicals need to reach out more to regular rank and file workers....but I wonder how many people here who do "rank and file" type organizing can honestly say that are able to mobilize a significant number of people from their union to turn out to a political protest (at 5am).

The refusal to cross the picket line didn't happen. An arbitrator ruled it was unsafe, allowing the ILWU workers to go home with pay. Many did even this begrudgingly because there was no guarantee that they'd get paid at the overtime rate for working on Sunday.

That's how these things work. The activists set up a picketline, the longshoremen show up and say its unsafe, the arbitrator rules and everyone goes home. That's the game. Like it or not...yes...that's how it works. Sorry its not up to your standards.

Also, if you weren't there how do you know they begrudgingly went home. The people I saw were happy they were going home early with pay on fathers day.

But Xxxxx was there and said that he and some others wanted to come back for the next shift at 5 am and continue setting up pickets as long as the Zim ship was trying to dock. He was shut down by the ANSWER leader who said they had decided on a 24-hour picket at a previous meeting. I imagine a major reason mainstream labor supported the action was because they knew (with ANSWER's guarantee) that it would be tightly circumscribed and enforced by ANSWER security and the left trade union bureaucracy.

Yes, people did want to come back the next day, but ANSWER had absolute control over this whole operation. There was plenty of energy to come back and I think we could have pulled it off. The thing is, and I can understand local 10's feeling, that it IS hard to ask people to take off two days for a political action. There wasn't allot of organizing done within Local 10 and it would have been hard to ask those guys to do it 2 days in a row. Its a political failing of the radicals in that union.

And again, I don't know where you are getting the narrative that this was supported by other unions. There was zero labor support other than meaningless resolutions, the support of Local 10 not the cross the picketline and few hodgepodge labor activists. The bulk of the support for the protest came from the Palestinian and Muslim communities turned out by activists in ANSWER, the anti-war and free Palestine movements.

When I heard that it was prearranged that the picket would only be up for one day -- in order to "help" the workers be able to alienate their labor-power on the docks the next day -- I voted with my feet and stayed home.

So your devoting several long posts to an action you didn't even attend ?

What would today been like if the workers called for the strike, and the union officialdom and the left had to tail that process? The action would have had a thousands times more energy and business papers around the world would have commented about it in worry. Consciousness would penetrated through out the working class without one newspaper being sold.

This had me laughing. When we shut down the port on May Day against the war and in violation of the contract ... I could just feeeeel the working class consciousness penetrating my ...oh oh...wait... I think I need to change my pants. Actually nobody gave a shit when we shut down on May Day... there was some heightened consciousness. I am in a small ILWU local and we had probably about 40% of our union members marching in SF that day against the war.

Its these little actions that build consciousness over time...so eventually you have the power and unity to do something big.

I agree that ANSWER sucks...they played a huge role in preventing the picket from lasting more than 24 hours. They made no room for anyone from outside their cadre to get involved. The picket was overwhelmingly nationalist, sectarian and authoritarian. I haven't been to Stalinist meeting in a loooong time and trust me...I won't be repeating it again anytime soon.

But the ILWU has a long history of taking political stands for a variety of different issues by using some of the stronger points in their contracts...such as the right to honor picket lines (regardless of the nature of the picketline) due to safety concerns and the "stop work" meetings. Some of the political causes they have supported include opposing South African Apartheid, freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal, in support of the Charleston longshoremen's struggle, in support of the Liverpool Dockers and against the War in Iraq. In all of these instances you had a small group of organizers using the contract to push for political action. Often this was with the tacit support of the local because some of them actually believed in the struggle (to a certain extent) but it also gave the union an opportunity to show a little muscle...remind the boss what they can do etc..

There is so much disinformation on this thread...I need to take a break so I can go to bed and penetrate some more working class consciousness.

I will admit upfront that I could have participated in this action but chose not to. This had more to do with personal priorities for the day than a lucid critique of the nature of the protest and how it was planned. (And, to be honest, I’m not as moved by the issue as maybe I should be; there’s far too much nationalism on both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict for me.) However, in its wake, I have closely followed accounts posted online, including here and on a Bay Area list-serve. I have to say I’m glad I stayed home with my family because it sounds like it turned out to be exactly the type of activist cluster-fuck you couldn’t pay me to partake in.

Gurley’s account helps flesh out some of the rank-and-file ILWU-side questions that I have had, so thanks for that. I have been wondering why the workers from those two shifts didn’t stick around to participate. I still don’t know why, although I’ve been tempted to find a way to ask them directly. (I don’t know any of them.) Was it really because participating could have been in violation of their contract, or did they just not really care – or did they have misgivings - about the political issue?

Gurley asks, “I wonder how many people here who do ‘rank and file’ type organizing can honestly say that are able to mobilize a significant number of people from their union to turn out to a political protest (at 5am).” Not too many, that’s for sure, because we’d be in much different shape otherwise. But the question is “Why not?” Instead of seriously posing that question to ourselves and each other, and most importantly, to the very rank-and-file we would wish to protest alongside at 5 am, we have instead defaulted to a “That’s just the way it is; the rank-and-file would rather stay home and watch the game on TV” position, which leads to a rationalization of this kind of substitution for workers’ self-activity. Luckily, I see the emergence of a searing critique of our tired Left methods emerging among a newer generation of radicals here, some of whom participated in and later criticized the port action, as H. posted above.

Yeah I agree with huli on that last bit "can you persuade your workmates to turn up to a political demo at 5am" is completely the wrong question to be asking.

Actually I think that is the right question to be asking. The "rank and file" are going to bring the fight to the bosses at 5 am if it affects their livelihoods, but as far as a symbolic protest like this goes, there's not going to be much of a response. And this is not legitimizing lack of internationalism or apathy, but workers have their priorities, which very rarely coincide with those of professional activists.

Hieronymous

In response to what Tojiah wrote, I think we need to be clear that groups like ANSWER treat the Israeli and U.S. working class as "subhuman scum" as well, making them directly responsible for all the barbarity of imperialism. This is nonsense that in effect denies that we even live in a class-divided society.

Groups being praised by the demonstrators in Oakland, like Hezbollah and Hamas, have track records of assassinating secular working class militants.

We need to always advocate for class struggle, based on internationalism, despite the overwhelming obstacles in places like Israel and Palestine. Which also means refusing to condone Popular Front coalitions like the one in Oakland that joined Palestinian, Turkish and other Islamicist nationalists, ANSWER's Stalinist protest police, the sectarian left, pro-Democratic Party labor councils and their allies in local elected political office.

Great job regurgitating internationalist talking points. This whole diatribe means nothing to Palestinian workers in the US who want to do something for their relatives and brethren in the West Bank and Gaza, and will not push them towards internationalism, especially considering how completely alien internationalism is to the Jewish Israeli working class, some of which gets to live on land Palestinian workers get ethnically cleansed off of.

If this keeps on being the sole contribution internationalists like you have to the discussion, Palestinian and Palestinian-sympathizing workers in the US (and all over, really) will keep on joining this kind stuntism and serving Stalinist/Leninist/substitutionalist interests.

And I don't need you to preach to me about Hamas and Hezbollah, as I probably know more victims of their "freedom fighting" than you do, and distinctly remember what it was like to know that the next bus I take will be my last.

Gurley’s account helps flesh out some of the rank-and-file ILWU-side questions that I have had, so thanks for that. I have been wondering why the workers from those two shifts didn’t stick around to participate. I still don’t know why, although I’ve been tempted to find a way to ask them directly. (I don’t know any of them.) Was it really because participating could have been in violation of their contract, or did they just not really care – or did they have misgivings - about the political issue?

This was a community picket line, a tactic that "works" when members of the community or another union set up a picket ...this must be organized separately from the ILWU. This is not about the legitimacy of the picket line, it being a secondary boycott etc ect...this is about the picket line presenting a danger to the Longshoremen. If the Longshoremen join the picket line would they look fearful of their safety for crossing the line ? Probably not. Even the radicals in local ten were not marching in the picket, they were there talking to their co-workers as they showed up for work that day. Them joining in would defeat the purpose of it being a "community picket" and could jeopardize the health and safety ruling from the arbitrator.

Gurley, aside from ANSWER being authoritarian pricks, how much of this was coordinated with the dockers prior to the action? I understand that flyers were posted up around the port, but did the dockers come to work expecting the picket line to be there?

And, if they'd wanted to, could the workers have crossed the picket line? Let me put it this way: after the arbitrator's ruling are workers obligated not to the cross the picket (i.e. it becomes union policy) or does it just mean that if they don't cross the picket they won't be penalized?

I'm not sure if they knew. Sometimes local 10 will pass a resolution in support of the issue and sometimes of the protest. I don't know if they did that for this one. I think they probably, at the very least, announced it at their meeting. I do know that all the major maritime trade union federations passed resolutions against the Israeli raid on the Mavi Mara. Which was the catalyst for this action. Did they show up for work expecting it ? I'm not sure.

If the arbitrator rules in favor of the picket being a health and safety hazard all the longshoremen go home with pay...so I don't know why anyone would cross at that point. And I am pretty sure the arbitrator just shuts down the whole shift. So there would be nothing to cross the line to do, the shift is canceled due to health and safety concerns. As "H" mentioned, there were other pickets where the arbitrator ordered the longshoremen to work and they took a vote and refused to cross. That certainly has happened before. And on May 1st the entire coast refused to go to work defying the company's decision not to grant a "stop work meeting". I am sure that if some rogue longshoremen showed up for work the company would have found something for them to do. But, the ILWU...for all the slagging of that this thread has produced...generally stand together and if a vote is taken they respect the vote and stay united with the decision their co-workers made.

I'm certainly not trying to "slag" the members of ILWU. And I don't read others' questions about rank-and-file participation as criticism of the members; rather, I think these are critical questions about the "community" in the "community picket."

For the organizers to use the workers' "refusal" to unload the ship to bolster claims about the legitimacy of the action is dishonest, and should be called out. Certainly, the next day, workers stopped "refusing," right? Why?

Why not honestly assess the agency of the dockworkers here? Historically, the rank and file of the ILWU has shown plenty of militant self-activity without the "help" of community Leftists providing cover through arbitrators rulings and phony pickets.

Why not honestly assess the agency of the dockworkers here? Historically, the rank and file of the ILWU has shown plenty of militant self-activity without the "help" of community Leftists providing cover through arbitrators rulings and phony pickets.

This just shows your complete lack of understanding of how this whole tactic works. Sometimes the ILWU takes action by itself (and often the community comes out to support them) and other times they can partner with community activists to raise awareness around an issue through a stop work meeting or community picket. They are all tactics that we can use because of the strong contract that the ILWU fought for over the years.

I didn't write the press release and probably wouldn't use refusal. Although, like I said, I'm not sure if the ILWU voted to honor the picket at their meeting. Sometimes those decisions are not made public.

I don't understand your point ? Is your suggestion that the ILWU stop honoring community picketlines ? That it is a useless tactic ? I think, not only does it help non-labor based organizations further their cause, it also allows the ILWU to enforce some more edgy elements of the contract, educate their members about the importance of not crossing picketlines and also educate them about global issues that their union has a direct ability to affect.

Again, what is your point ? Maybe next time they will vote to not handle Israeli cargo....but often those decision are made because of "safety concerns" as well...as often is the case with scab cargo. Would you consider that to not be a legitimate decision, deciding not to handle ("politicized") cargo because it is a "safety concern" for the workers ? Is this not a "pure" action because the union would decide to use a loophole in their contract ? Are you against contracts ? haha...really I don't understand your point.

I think you need to get a better grasp of how our contracts and maritime unions function.

As a former member of ILWU local 6 (in the early 1990s), which was born in the "march inland" away from the docks, I'm pretty familiar with the ILWU legacy and fallacies around the cult of Harry Bridges.

And although you're not asking me, my answer regardless is "yes," I'm against contracts. Which is why the Bridges myth is bullshit. By World War 2 he was really the Grand Poo-Bah of Piecards. Sure, the maritime workers in the Bay Area kicked ass in the 1934 General Strike, breaking from Joe Ryan's mobbed-up East Coast-based ILA and congealing the gains of that strike victory (even though it was through arbitration) in a worker-run hiring hall and a contract. But they had to protect those gains with strikes again in 1936 and 1948.

But it was in the war years, despite all the trials and all the denials, that Harry's true nature as a toady of the Moscow line became apparent. He and the other picecards enthusiastically supported the no-strike pledge in WW2, even taking the position that any strike, no matter what the cause, "aided Hitler" (see Longshoremen's Bulletin, March 10, 1942). While contracts were pretty new, having come to prominence with the 1935 Wagner Act and firmed up in 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, Bridges and the bureaucrats suggested a 9-year contract after the war.

Now you've got to remember that as a young Australian, Harry was a Wobbly and the honored tradition of the IWW had been contracts weren't necessary with mobilized militancy on the shopfloor. Even the "Stormy Petrels of West Coast Labor" (see the awesome article by Richard Boyden called "The San Francisco Machinists and the National War Labor Board" in American Labor in the Era of World War II, edited by Sally M. Miller and Daniel A. Cornford), the sister organizations of machinists of IAM Lodge 68 in San Francisco and CIO Steel Workers Organizing Committee Local 1304 in Oakland, didn't have contracts even though they were a highly-skilled craft union. Their strength was based on class consciousness and they flaunted that at management who begged them to collectively bargain and sign contracts. Their refusal was based on the idea that contracts would hold them back and prevent them from fighting for even more. Even during WW2, they refused lucrative contracts, effectively telling the boss "we don't want your stinking contract -- because we'll just strike at the end of the month and force you to give us another raise!"

During World War 2, even ILWU vice-president Lou Goldblatt was toeing the pro-Moscow Communist Party line where the fight against fascism in Europe was supremely more important than class struggle at home. He affirmed the IWLU's position in denouncing the Stormy Petrels, saying "We on the labor side don't want to see any resumption in the San Francisco Bay Area... of the type of collective bargaining that prevailed six or seven years ago [the massive wave of sit-down strikes - Hieronymous] when you had a constant economic contest [and] one of the best strike records that anybody ever had in the country. We think we have had enough of that... We don't want the resumption of guerilla warfare which will inevitably result if this board [War Labor Board that was trying to crush the Stormy Petrels] fails to act..." (ILWU Executive Session Minutes, June 2, 1942, p. 401). It took until 5 years after the end of WW2 for the combined effort of the state, the collective bosses and the collaboration of the "official labor movement," including the AFL, the CIO, and Bridges and the ILWU, but also the Communist Party, to finally destroy the kind of class war from below that the Stormy Petrels embodied. But through the war years, these machinists in 2 different unions racked up more job actions than any other sector in the entire U.S. Some of their stellar militants had learned the ropes in the IWW-style "syndicalist hothouse of Chicago" before coming west.

Basically, I was uncritical of the Bridges myth until I attended the Bay Area memorial service soon after Stan Weir's death (he died in Southern California, but most of his adult life was lived up north). There I met his widow Mary, his kids and grandkids, as well as the "B" Men he fought with against Bridges and the whole ILWU bureaucracy (with a couple defections). Here's a brief version of their betrayal: soon after the Modernization & Mechanization (M&M) deal in 1960 that containerized the Port of San Francisco (and through expansion for the Vietnam War supply effort sent it across the Bay to the more spacious Port of Oakland), Stan and 81 mostly African American longshoremen were fired. Here's the story from Stan's obituary:

The "B" Men's Struggle

In 1959, the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) created a new hiring category in San Francisco. "B" men would work irregularly and have the dirtiest jobs, with the promise of promotion to "A" status after a year. Until that promotion, they were second-class citizens, barred from participation in union meetings.

[...]Stan went to work on the waterfront and became one of three representatives of the approximately 700 "B" men.

Over the next four years, the promised promotion did not occur. Harry Bridges, president of the union, fired the other two reps. When Stan called for a replacement election, Bridges eliminated representation entirely.

In 1963, Stan and eighty-one other "B" men seen as Bridges' opponents were peremptorily fired. Their united battle to recover their jobs led to a seventeen-year lawsuit that was unsuccessful.

I was blessed to meet this beautiful interracial working class extended family at the memorial. It was truly wonderful to see Stan's grandkids play with their friends who were the grandkids of the other "B" men. And even better was hearing the critique of the ILWU from those cast off by Bridges' megalomania. I also met longshore workers who made the cut, but who were even more critical of the union. One told me of the rank-and-file having to fight tooth-and-nail against the union bosses obedience to contractual no-strike clauses to pull off the last strike the ILWU ever had, in 1971.

But what this comrade told me wasn't enough, so I visited the ILWU archives at the International headquarters in San Francisco. The head librarian/archivist at the time, Gene Vrana, was very helpful -- as he'd been on other research visits. But when I mentioned I wanted documentation on the '71 strike, he soured. I said he couldn't find anything but then lectured me about why I was always asking about strikes, saying "Don't you realize that they're [strikes] a thing of the past?" And this was only about 5 years ago. He went on to praise how ol' Harry and his underlings like Goldblatt had won such huge gains, that were locked into contracts at the result of collective bargaining, that strikes would "never" be necessary again. It was clear that, at least since ol' Harry was trying to come out of WW2 with a 9-year contract, this has been the ILWU party line ever since.

So when Gurley writes that for symbolic actions the union:

can partner with community activists to raise awareness around an issue through a stop work meeting or community picket.

we are assured that the legacy of ol' Harry Bridges lives on, that class struggle was left behind long ago, and that partnerships -- often really based on class collaboration -- with the NGO-nonprofit-industrial complex (Gurley's "non-labor based organizations") has replaced militancy based on working class agency towards class consciousness. It almost sounds PostModern, no?

It wasn't always this way, and the victories in the class war for over 150 years have actually given sectors like longshoring some of the highest industrial wages in the U.S. But as the coastwide lock-out of 2002 demonstrated, without an activated rank-and-file this might soon come to an end. It might be other port workers whose class consciousness will save the day, like the 16,500 troqueros who by a wildcat strike at the combined Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex on May Day 2006 completely shut down the busiest container cargo port in the Western Hemisphere.

Here's an excerpt of a history about the way it used to be on the waterfront in San Francisco (from a presentation I gave for a conference to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the '34 General Strike last year), where at times sectoral divisions broke down, the class united and fought "for itself":

I.W.W. & Radical Influences on the San Francisco Waterfront

Class struggle in San Francisco was always extremely violent. The first sailors’ strike was in 1850 and by 1853 they began to organize onshore. In this dynamic “labor was pitted against all of capital.” 1866 marked the first attempt to create a horizontal organization that united all waterfront unions. The first strike of all waterfront workers was in 1886, which also drew in striking brewery workers. It led to the formation of the Coast Seaman’s Union of all sailors on the Pacific Coast in 1891, the first of its kind in the world. This caused bosses to create an all-inclusive group called the “Board of Manufacturers” in response.

The 2nd Waterfront Strike of 1893 lost because a bomb was set off on Christmas in front of a non-union boarding house, killing 10. It weakened the workers' strength and was a victory for the bosses. Klondike Gold and the Spanish-American War brought an end to the depression and stimulated the SF economy soon after.

A milestone event was the formation in 1901 of the City Front Federation that included 13,000 waterfront workers from the Sailors Union of the Pacific, the Teamsters, and the various longshore unions. The bosses responded with the Employers Council. The 1901 Waterfront Strike erupted with a lock-out of the Teamsters and grew into a tangle of sympathy strikes that crippled the harbor for 3 months. It grew violent and 5 were killed and 300 assaults were reported. It ended in a negotiated settlement by the orders of Governor Gate. It ended in the maintenance of the status quo but was a victory for the local working class because it came out of the strike stronger than it started.

The 1916 San Francisco Longshore Strike succeeded in tying up $2.5 million in exports. A longshoreman was murdered, which tipped popular opinion in the strikers’ favor. But the Preparedness Day bombing, which killed 10 and seriously injured 40, quickly ended support for the strike. In the reaction, city voters passed an anti-picketing ordinance. Worse still, Tom Mooney was framed for the bombing and served 22 years in prison before being pardoned. In many ways it was San Francisco’s Haymarket, but Mooney’s eventual release is a testament to the strength of the local working class and the international campaign for his release.

The post World War I agitation that led to the 1919 “Seattle Commune,” the general strike where a committee of the working class ran the city for 5 days, was influenced by the cross-polination of class struggle up and down the West Coast, and led to the 6-week General Strike in Winnipeg Canada.

When the 83-day West Coast Maritime Strike in 1934 led to attempts of the National Guard to force open the SF waterfront by force, resulting in 2 deaths, the first union to go out in what became the General Strike were the Teamsters. The 1901 Waterfront Strike was sparked by Teamsters, who were soon joined by longshore workers and maritime workers because of their unity in the City Front Federation, so in ’34 they were returning the favor — in an amazing demonstration of working class memory.

Strangely, one person lived through this whole period and played a constant counter-revolutionary role. He was Dave Beck, who had risen up to be the Teamster leader in the West (the leader of the Teamster international through much of the same period was Dan Tobin), based in Seattle. Basically, he was a thug and a crook. He broke his teeth as a 24-year old member of the faction of Teamsters opposed to the Seattle General Strike in 1919. In ’34, as a Teamster leader in the West, he encouraged Teamster to scab on other workers in the SF General Strike. But he showed his true colors in ’46 in demanding that Teamsters in Oakland NOT take part in the General Strike, even though they helped start it. In the Parmount News newsreel footage of the Oakland General Strike, Dave Beck said that it was “… a lot of foolishness and more like a revolution than an industrial dispute.”

That pretty much sums up the way labor bureaucrats subsequently treat any kind of class-based movement in general and rank-and-file militancy in particular.

There's a need to reinvigorate the tradition of longshore workers who in 1919 in Seattle and San Francisco refused to load armament ships to supply the attacks on the Russian Revolution. Even the Albion Hall group that first met in San Francisco in 1933, at the worst of the Depression (with unemployment at its all-time high of 24.9%), began by fomenting job actions on the docks, things like slow-downs, sabotage, and quickie strikes. Within a year those efforts paid off in the 83-day West Coast Maritime Strike, which in turn resulted in the 4-day San Francisco General Strike. In examples like these, militants advocated working class agency as a means to the end of consciousness and heightened class struggle.

Symbolic actions only lead to the spectacular dead-end of media attention, the "awareness" Gurley refers to. But you can't achieve radical ends with symbolic -- and reformist -- means. To paraphrase Rosa Luxemburg, you can only learn to fight by fighting.

On a final note, I've got to say that many of the radical actions mentioned above on the San Francisco waterfront came about through the influence of the I.W.W. and its main precursor, the "Chicago Idea" that rose with the 8-Hour Day Movement of the 1870s and 1880s and was defeated with the executions of the Haymarket Martyrs.

Here's what Sergio Bologna said, in his essay "Class Composition and the Theory of the Party at the Origins of the Workers' Council Movement," referencing how the militant tactics of the Wobblies presaged the strike wave in Italy that lasted from the "Hot Autumn" of 1969 through the end of the 1970s:

The IWW succeeded in creating an absolutely original type of agitator: not the mole digging for decades within the single factory or proletarian neighborhood, but the type of agitator who swims within the stream of proletarian struggles, who moves from one end to the other of the enormous American continent and who rides the seismic wave of the struggle, overcoming national boundaries and sailing the oceans before organizing conventions to found sister organizations. The Wobblies' concern with transportation workers and longshoremen, their constant determination to strike at capital as an international market, their intuitive understanding of the mobile proletariat - employed today, unemployed tomorrow - as a virus of social insubordination, as the agent of the "social wildcat": all these things make the IWW a class organization which anticipated present-day forms of struggle.

Otro más pa mi gente... haha...just because I can't let it go :)

Its nice that H gives us a good and accurate history of the B men. But what he fails to realize is that many of the people who were active with this (and similar actions) were/are also supportive of the struggle of the B men and subsequent struggles within in the ILWU against more conservative elements within the international leadership.

From a bay area listserv:
**************************

Just to clarify a couple of points about the June 20 pickets that shut
down the SSA terminal at the Port of Oakland for 24 hours:

1) On Tuesday, June 8, the ILWU Exec. Bd. passed the resolution that
is mentioned below. On Thurs., June 10 there was meeting called on
24-hours notice and attended by representatives of the Palestinian
community in the Bay Area, the Transport Workers Solidarity Cmte,
ANSWER Coalition and other organizations to form the Labor/Community
Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The
Labor/Community Committee was the sponsor of the June 20 picket lines
at the Port of Oakland. Many, many organizations endorsed.

********

ANSWER did play a major role in the action. But it should be noted that
it was kicked off by the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee , a
Multi-Union Rank and file (and for this website's information...a non-sectarian) committee. After we decided to launch the effort Local 10 passed a motion condemning the attack on the Flotilla, called for an end to the blockade and praised the (then) up coming Swedish dockers
union action . Also various Labor councils passed similar motions ,
albeit with language weaker than the #10 resolution. This was followed by two Public meetings where numerous groups were represented.

fascinating posts.
re: joe ryan, i'm only just finishing 'dark harbor' about the writing of the articles by malcolm johnson that became 'on the waterfront'. the book is mainstream journalism and not history, and mentions bridges only briefly as a red and a foil for the jingo ryan, but still ... coincidence.