Longshoremen strike against the war

9:01PM ON 05/04/2008
BY Dave Segal

On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work.

They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn’t want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers’ Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an “illegal strike.” But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses’ mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers’ May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington.

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One Comment on “ Longshoremen strike against the war ”

May 5th, 2008 at 12:50AM
JOE BERNSTEIN Says:

Sounds like you’re having Marxist fantasies again.If you actually had to work every day for a living,you wouldn’t have the time for them.Meanwhile in RI,you and your activist friends managed to tie up the streets downtown during rush hour to stoke your egos,or maybe,just maybe you were all too self absrbed to realize what the results of your actions would be.

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