ILWU CONDUCTS 1-DAY WEST COAST STRIKE TO PROTEST IRAQ WAR

Friday, May 2, 2008

(PAI)ILWU CONDUCTS 1-DAY WEST COAST STRIKE TO PROTEST IRAQ WAR

   SAN FRANCISCO (PAI)--Angering their bosses, 25,000
members of the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union conducted a 1-day strike on May 1--May Day, the
international workers day--to protest the continuing
war in Iraq and demand the troops come home.

   The union decided in February to mount the protest.
Its San Francisco, Calif.- based Local 10 has been a leader
among unions nationwide in campaigning against GOP
President George W. Bush’s war, even before the
fighting began. Though ILWU notified its employers
well in advance of its plans, management refused to accommodate them,
union President Bob McEllrath said.

   “Longshore workers are standing-down on the job and
standing up for America. We’re supporting the troops
and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time
to end the war in Iraq,” McEllrath added.

    The support of the union's Vietnam veterans helped pass the one-day strike. The resolution declared Bush’s Iraq War “an
imperial action for oil in which the lives of
working-class youth and Iraqi civilians were being
wasted.” It called May Day a “no peace, no work"
holiday.

   ILWU’s resolution also criticized congressional
Democrats, elected to a majority in 2006, for failing
to end Bush’s war. So “longshoremen decided to
exercise their political power on the docks,” one
said.

   McEllrath pointedly noted the union’s employer group,
the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), consists of
large carriers and port operators, most of which are
foreign-owned. “Big foreign corporations that control
global shipping aren’t loyal or accountable to any
country. For them it’s all about making money,”
McEllrath said.

   “But longshore workers are different. We’re loyal to
America, and we won’t stand by while our country, our
troops, and our economy are destroyed by a war that’s
bankrupting us to the tune of $3 trillion,” he
declared.

   ILWU also has a history of crossing swords with the
anti-worker GOP Bush regime.   When PMA locked out the
ILWU in 2002, it tried to get Bush to bring in troops
to run the ports--and face the workers with guns.
When publicity killed PMA’s scheme, the port managers
got Bush to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act against ILWU.
He ordered the workers back after they were out for 11
days, even though the management lockout produced the
dispute. Bush’s order did not even mention the
management’s role.                       ###