West Coast port blockade planned for Dec. 12 [Includes Video Announcement]
By Dave Welsh
Oakland, Calif.
Dec 3, 2011
Organizing is under way for a coordinated mass blockade
of West Coast ports on Monday, Dec. 12, targeting “Wall Street on the
waterfront” — the major companies owned and controlled by
“the 1 percent” ruling elite.
Initiated by Occupy Oakland, the Dec. 12 West
Coast port shutdown is being jointly organized by Occupy movements in Los
Angeles, Portland, Seattle and other ports along the coast. The multiport
shutdown has three main objectives:
1) Solidarity with longshore workers in Longview,
Wash., who are facing vicious police and state repression in their struggle to
preserve the union there. These workers are fighting a union-busting
transnational combine called EGT that is 51 percent owned by Bunge Ltd. —
part of the Wall Street-backed grain cartel that controls most of the
world’s trade in food products. EGT has hired scabs to break the
jurisdiction of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in an attempt
to drive down the price of labor on the docks and destroy the union.
2) Solidarity with independent truckers and other
workers in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, targeting SSA, an
anti-union port terminal operator majority owned by Goldman Sachs, the
notorious Wall Street investment bank.
3) In response to the brutal, nationally coordinated
police attacks on the Occupy movement organized by the 1 percent and their
agents in government. “Now we will strike back,” read an Occupy
Oakland statement, “with our own coordinated attack on the 1 percent
—
a West Coast port blockade and shutdown on Dec. 12th to economically disrupt
Wall Street on the waterfront.”
The West Coast Occupy movements are taking inspiration
from the general strike and port blockade in Oakland on Nov. 2 when 30,000
people marched into the port and shut it down. No cargo was loaded or unloaded
on the evening shift. Ships at dock lay idle, as ILWU rank-and-file workers,
following the great traditions of their union, honored the picket lines at
every terminal.
‘New wing of the labor
movement’
Occupy Seattle gave some reasons why they are
participating on Dec. 12: “We are inspired by longshore workers’
direct actions against EGT, we are angered by the repression they are facing by
the cops and courts, and we know that if the 1 percent busts the ILWU they will
try to drive down all of our wages and working conditions next. ...
“Many of us are the 89 percent of U.S. workers
who are not in unions … who are unemployed, underemployed, students,
houseless,” continued the Occupy Seattle statement. “Our picket
lines might not have the same legal standing as official union picket lines,
but when the unions first started picketing back in the day they were also
considered illegitimate. … Dec. 12 is the first of many actions that
Occupy will take as a new wing of the labor movement.”
‘The 1 percent use police to silence the
99 percent’
Occupy LA explained that “the 1 percent are
depriving port truckers and other workers of decent pay, working conditions and
the right to organize. … The
1 percent pursued a conscious policy of deindustrialization, resulting in trade
at the port being seven containers coming in for every one container going out.
They have driven migrant workers into a superexploited gray market economy.
… The
1 percent use police brutality and repression, jails and prisons to suppress,
divide and try to silence the 99 percent and all who oppose their insatiable
greed.
“To put an end to all that,” read the
Occupy LA statement, “we call on the
99 percent to boycott and occupy the port on Dec. 12 for full legalization [of
immigrant families], good jobs for all, equality and justice. Port drivers and
other workers have the power to push forward the kind of change we need.”
Occupy LA also voted to build for a general strike they are calling to take
place on May 1, 2012.
The first flyer for Dec. 12 conveyed the boldness and
fighting spirit of this young movement. It read: “Shut the West Coast
down! Together we are unstoppable!” For more information, visit
www.westcoastportshutdown.org.
International Action Center • Solidarity Center • 147 W. 24th St., FL 2 • New York, NY 10011 Phone 212.633.6646 • E-mail: iacenter@iacenter.org • En Español: iac-cai@iacenter.org