Saturday, February 3, 2001
People's Weekly World February 3, 2001 Edition.
AFL-CIO president supports ILA dockers
By Evelina Alarcon
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney issued a national call for labor support for five dock workers from Charleston, S.C. who were arrested by police for defending union jurisdiction at the second largest port on the eastern seaboard.
In a letter dated Jan. 22, Sweeney called on union leaders to initiate local defense committees and to raise funds for the five members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA).
"Local defense committees of the campaign are needed across the USA," Sweeney said. "Assistance in starting committees would be invaluable."
Sweeney's letter pointed to the prospect of serious jail time for the dock workers who are charged with rioting after the South Carolina Attorney General mobilized 600 state police, along with armored personnel carriers in response to a peaceful ILA picketline against Danish-owned Nordana lines. Nordana was introducing non-union labor at the port.
In addition, 27 other ILA members are facing civil suits by a non-union stevedore company. Sweeney called the suits "a mean spirited act of revenge aimed at ruining their lives." The national AFL-CIO has recently agreed to assist the effort of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, which has initiated a "Campaign for Workers Rights in South Carolina" in order to build a national defense for the five ILA members.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is already building such committees at ports along the West Coast. Organizations such as the Black Radical Congress are joining these efforts as well. The battle in Charleston is a critical part of the fight for democracy, which is raging in the deep South. Like in Florida, the results will have a national impact. This fight is seen by many as the opening gun to destroy the union movement in the South and across the nation.
"This campaign brings to the fore basic constitutional issues regarding freedom of speech and association," Sweeney said, "not to mention the statutory right of all workers to organize."
Ken Riley, president of ILA Local 1422 in Charleston, told the World that he is meeting with national civil rights leaders to win their support for actions in South Carolina to pressure the attorney general to drop the charges against the dockworkers.
For more information on this critical struggle and details regarding the "Campaign for Workers' Rights in South Carolina," call the South Carolina AFL-CIO at (803) 798-8300. To get a copy of a sample resolution in support of the Charleston 5 or join local defense committees on the West Coast, contact Steve Stallone at the ILWU's San Francisco office at (415) 775-0533 or by e-mail: stevestallone@ilwu.org.
