The campaign in support of the Charleston longshore workers continues to grow.

Five longshore workers from International Longshoremen’s Association Locals 1422 and 1771 at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina have been hit with felony rioting charges punishable by up to five years in prison after 600 riot-equipped police attacked their picket line set up against a scab operation at their port Jan. 20, 2000. The ILWU has joined an international movement demanding the South Carolina state Attorney General drop the bogus charges. The movement is also demanding the civil lawsuit, brought by the stevedoring company that hired the scab workers, against the ILA locals and 29 of their members for $1.5 million in alleged financial damages caused by the picketing also be dropped. Unions and other community and civil rights organizations are also raising money for the legal defense fund and planning protest actions for the first day of the trial.

Local 1422 President Ken Riley and other members of the local have been criss-crossing the country, spreading the word about their struggle, galvanizing support and raising funds. Riley went to Atlanta, Georgia March 9 and 10 where he spoke at a teach-in at Spelman College sponsored by students and the local Central Labor Council. AFL-CIO Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson shared the stage with Riley and in a rousing speech she pledged the full support of the AFL-CIO to the Charleston struggle and endorsed the international day solidarity actions planned for whenever the first day of the trial of the Charleston 5 is scheduled. Riley also spoke to the United Auto Workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and a local chapter of the Green Party.

The following week Riley went to New Orleans where he spoke to a forum attended by students, unionists and community organizers at Tulane University Friday, March 16. The following day he addressed a breakfast meeting of community organizers sponsored by the local chapter of the Black Radical Congress. He also met with the Central Labor Council in New Orleans where he received a pledge of support and involvement in the campaign.

“The people in New Orleans are fired up,” Riley said. “They are starting up defense committees and getting fundraisers going.”

At the end of the month Riley went to New York City where he addressed gatherings at City University of New York’s Queens College campus and at Hunter College. Activists there are also setting up defense committees and have asked Riley to return for further organizing events.

Other members of Local 1422 have been traveling. Local Executive Board members Leonard Riley and Charles Braze have made appearances in Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., garnering more support for the cause and raising money for the defense fund.

The South Carolina Progressive Network, a coalition of 34 grassroots and advocacy groups in the state, honored Ken Riley with its annual Thunder and Lightning Award. The award draws its name from the Frederick Douglass quote that “those who deprecate agitation yet profess to favor freedom…are like those who want rain without thunder and lightning.” The action came at the same time that the state legislature was busy passing three anti-worker bills—one that would prevent members of the ILA from serving on the state Ports Authority Board, one that would limit the minimum wage to federal standards and another that further restricts workers’ rights to organize in the right-to-work state. The South Carolina AFL-CIO, that has been instrumental in organizing the Charleston campaign, is also working to defeat these bills.

Back on the West Coast, Ken Riley, along with ILA General Vice President Benny Holland and ILA Secretary-Treasurer of the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District Clyde Fitzgerald, visited the ILWU Longshore Caucus March 14 (see story page 3). At the Caucus delegates unanimously passed a motion assessing longshore workers $2.00 per month for the Charleston defense fund. In separate actions, the members of two of the smaller ILWU longshore locals, Local 32 in Everett, Wash. and Local 50 in Astoria, Ore., donated $1,000 each to the defense fund. ILWU Canada locals also pledged $15,000 to the defense fund. The Vancouver, British Columbia Pensioners Club also donated $500. Local 23 pensioners in Tacoma have voted to contribute $25 per month to the defense fund.

In the Puget Sound area ILWU Local 23 President Roger Boespflug has called for all ILWU rank-and-file activists interested in helping to form a local Charleston defense committee to gather at the start of the next longshore Area LRC meeting on Monday, April 23 at 10:00 a.m. at the World Trade Center, 3600 Port of Tacoma Road.

At its March meeting in London the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) invoked the International Solidarity Contract signed by its affiliates at its Dockers Section Conference in Miami, Fla. in June 1997 and the unanimously adopted resolution against union busting. The signatories of that pact pledged to come to the aid of any member confronted with privatization and casualization in their port. The London gathering decided the current situation in Charleston fit that definition and kicked off its global campaign and mobilization in support of the Charleston longshore workers. It sent out a circular calling on all its affiliates to contribute to the defense fund of the Charleston 5 and alerted them that they may in the very near future receive an urgent request to participate in global actions in support of the Charleston 5.