Why We Defend the ILWU and All Workers (tags)
In recent weeks, a showdown has loomed on U.S. docks between the shipping bosses and port workers that has rattled the capitalist ruling class. On the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the International Longshoreman's Association prepared to strike container shipping while the employers threatened to lock out 14,500 ILA members. On the West Coast, the grain shippers been demanding a giveback contract from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which would effectively bypass the union hiring hall, slash workers' vital safety protections and gut union power. Yet in the midst of the Northwest grain battle, an Occupy activist Peter Little publishes an article vociferously arguing against the call to defend the ILWU. While posing as ultra-left, this policy if actually carried out would aid the employers who are hell-bent on destroying ILWU union power on the waterfront. And blaming sellouts on the nature of unions lets the bureaucrats off the hook. We in the Internationalist Group say: all those who stand with the exploited and oppressed must come to the defense of the ILWU in this fight. And that defense includes forthrightly opposing the capitulations and betrayals by the labor bureaucracy which sells out vital union gains in the vain hope of an impossible "cooperation" with capital, endangering the workers organizations they preside over.
Truckers Set to Shut Down LA Harbor on May 1st. (tags)
"Day Without and Immigrant" Spreads to the LA Harbor.
Self-educated at the Los Angeles Public Library in the Thirties, Carlos Bulosan, the militant Filipino writer and labor activist, died on September 11, 1956. His death anniversary last month provided the occasion for the Filipino community to celebrate his contribution to the revolutionary struggle of peoples everywhere for justice, dignity, and self-determination. Bulosan was part of the community of progressive Los Angeles-based intellectuals (Carey McWilliams, Sanora Babb, Louis Adamic, Ring Lardner Jr. and others) victimized by McCarthyism and fascist reaction. His example of resistance continues to inspire people of color everywhere.
“The Neocons Have Played U.S. for a Chump!” (tags)
It’s bad enough that the slippery Neocons got the U.S. involved in the Iraqi War, now those scoundrels want us to attack Iran! Just the other day, the unindicted war criminal, Henry Kissinger, suggested that we take Iran down, if certain conditions were fulfilled. Thanks to the compelling “Downing St. Memos,” and the splendid work of Think Tanks, like the IRmep, it has become clearer that the conniving Neocons have used the U.S. as a chump!
Portlanders support California supermarket workers (tags)
Yesterday, a crowd of about 50 rallied at the Safeway at 1100 NE Broadway in Portland to support the 70,000 workers who have been locked out of Southern California supermarkets for insisting on keeping hard-fought health benefits in the face of austerity plans being imposed by the big supermarket chains. See here for previous feature. Supporters marched into the store, up and down the aisles, chanting "Boycott Safeway!" and demanding fairness for workers and affordable health care for all...