Solidarity Needed Now! Defend Longshore Workers Right to Support Wisconsin Public Workers and Commemorate Dr. King Jr. April 4

Hands Off ILWU Local 10! Demand the Pacific Maritine Association Drop the Anti-Union Suit! 

SIGN the E-LETTER below to PMA President & CEO James C. McKenna circulate it widely -- JMcKenna@pmanet.org

SEND your resolutions and messages of solidarity to the ILWU and to the Million Worker March Movement

On April 4th longshore workers joined tens of thousands of workers in more than 1000 cities and towns across the country. They heeded the call of the AFL-CIO for 'no business as usual' to show support for embattled Wisconsin workers on the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination as he supported Memphis, Tenn. sanitation workers' strike for collective bargaining and dignity forty-three years ago. 

The San Francisco and Oakland, Calif. port workers themselves stood up and made their slogan "an injury to one, is an injury to all" a reality.  In a rank-and-file act of resistance to the bosses' war on workers, they each voluntarily withdrew their labor from the docks that day! Nothing moved on the waterfront for 24 hours.

They acted bravely and with conscience! 

But more than that they showed the way. 

If all of us did as they did on April 4th -- both union and non-union, workers, community members and students, documented and undocumented (that would take a lot of organizing, but it is possible) -- there would be no more union busting, budget cuts, racism, war and all of the other things that we need to change so badly. Like the workers' anthem "Solidarity Forever" says, "without our brain and muscle not a single wheel would turn."

That is the power that we have as workers!

Now ILWU Local 10 needs our support!

This e-message says:

To: James C. McKenna, President and CEO of the Pacific Maritime Association 

    We the undersigned -- union and community members -- young and old -- students and jobless -- join with the longshore workers to demand that the PMA drop all retaliatory actions including it's suit against ILWU Local 10 and it's members for exercising their right to show support for Wisconsin's public workers and to commemorate Rev. Dr. King Jr.'s assassination in the AFL-CIO's National Day of Action on April 4th. 
    
    We commend the brave longshore workers who showed the way by acting with conscience on April 4th.
    
    We believe that An injury to one, is an injury to all!

In addition to the President and CEO of the Pacific Maritime Assoc., your message will be copied to Pres. Obama, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, to alert the Congressional Black Caucus and the media.

Send resolutions and support letters to:

ILWU International Pres. Bob McEllrath
1188 Franklin Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94109-6800
and
MWM West
PO Box 5092
Richmond, CA 94805

send copies of all resolutions and letters of support to: march4jobs@gmail.com

Donations are needed to continue Bailout the People's work.

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Below is a resolution passed by the San Francisco Labor Council on April 11 and a special video on the history of ILWU Local 10, initiator of the Million Worker March movement, mobilizing in our own name.

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San Francisco Labor Council Resolution – Adopted unanimously April 11, 2011       

DEFEND ILWU LOCAL 10's APRIL 4 SOLIDARITY ACTION

Whereas, the delegates meeting of the Council voted unanimously on March 14 that "in the event that a Council affiliate votes to engage in an industrial action on April 4, the San Francisco Labor Council will call on all its affiliates.....to support such action......" and 

Whereas, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 and its President Richard Mead are being sued in court by maritime employers of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) for a 24 hour shutdown of the Port of Oakland on April 4 for responding to the AFL-CIO call for a National Day of Action and in line with ILWU International President McEllrath's March 8th call for mobilizing in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin; and

Whereas, each rank and file member of Local 10 made this selfless choice to stand up for public workers in Wisconsin and for all workers in the best tradition of the longshore union, as they have done since the Big Strike of 1934 and the historic San Francisco General Strike which built the foundation for the trade union movement in this city and on the West Coast, and

Whereas, these same maritime employers were unsuccessful in their attempt to use the slave labor Taft-Hartley Act to stop the ILWU from carrying out a Local 10-initiated coastwide shutdown of all ports on May Day 2008 to demand an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a first-ever in U.S. labor history, and 

Whereas, Local 10, the heart and soul of the San Francisco labor movement, is now under attack for implementing the principled labor slogan "An Injury to One is an Injury to All", and

Therefore be it resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council, consistent with its March 14th resolution, initiate a defense of ILWU Local 10 by setting up a broad-based defense committee in close collaboration with Local 10, and by mobilizing the AFL-CIO labor councils and unions of the Bay Area and California, and

Be it further resolved, that the first step in this campaign will be to call for a mass mobilization of all Bay Area Labor Councils and the California AFL-CIO to rally in front of PMA headquarters in San Francisco on Monday April 25th to demand that the court suit be dropped and that the vindictive lynch mob procedures against the union in the arbitration be halted immediately, and

Be it finally resolved that ILWU Local 10 be commended for its solidarity action and that we request that the state and national AFL-CIO do likewise.