May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports (tags)
On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn't want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers' Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an "illegal strike." But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses' mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers' May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their "symbolic" action was felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party.
On the Line in the Port of Oakland (tags)
Dockworkers honored a community picket line in the Port of Oakland on May 19, 2007, and the shipping operations of a war profiteer were shut down for two shifts. Cargo did not move at the SSA terminal that day. It takes only two lines to sum this up, but it took two months to prepare.
For 8 days in May, Truckers closed the Port of Oakland (tags)
For eight days in May, the Port of Oakland was virtually shut down by truckers striking for better conditions. The same port had been closed down by antiwar protesters just three weeks before, so a small contingent of us from Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) joined them as a community support group and reported their struggle on Indymedia.
The unexpected ending of the case against the Oakland 25 (tags)
The DA had been prosecuting 25 victims of the police assault which took place on April 7, 2003 in the Port of Oakland. A year later, the ordeal of these people finally ended in a strange twist.
The first anniversary of April 7th in the Port of Oakland (tags)
Revisiting a scene of shock and awe to reaffirm our First Amendment rights. Our banner read, “Remember the shots! -- Return to the docks!”