By Steve Stallone

 

            After being under house arrest for more than a year pending trial, the Charleston 5 were quickly and unexpectedly given a court date—June 25—and just as quickly it was postponed.

South Carolina Attorney General Charles Condon is staking his political career—he is running for governor—on the prosecution of union workers who were picketing in defense of their jobs. Being hit with a media campaign portraying him as the force behind an unwarranted, racist and anti-labor case, and with a mass demonstration in South Carolina June 9 building momentum against him, Condon moved fast to put pressure on the legal team and the movement. But the Charleston 5 legal defense team was able to file a continuance motion delaying his action.

            Condon has stated publicly in recent days that since South Carolina is a right-to-work state, he will vigorously defend people’s right to refuse to join a labor union. Never mind the Charleston longshore workers’ Constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. Never mind their right by federal labor law to picket in defense of their jobs. Never mind the International Labor Organization’s conventions guaranteeing those same rights. What really matters to the top law enforcement officer of South Carolina is a scab’s right to work for less than one third the pay of a union longshore worker.

            Pressure is being put on Condon from all directions to drop the charges, but so far he has stubbornly refused to back down. If the Charleston 5 go to jail on these charges this could be the defining moment of the Bush presidency’s war on the labor movement, just as the firing of the PATCO air traffic controllers was for the Reagan presidency. It could set an example and the tone of how workers and their unions will be dealt with as international capital reorganizes and globalizes the economy. Or if we can beat back Condon’s attack, and the Winyah Stevedoring’s attempt to bankrupt the Charleston locals and 27 of its individual members, we can blunt their offensive.

But even when you’re right, a jury trial is a crapshoot. Ultimately only a strong movement of labor civil rights and community groups will be able to bring enough pressure to bear to assure their vindication and freedom.