Tactics and the port shutdown

Bay Area activists Ragina Johnson, Alex Schmaus and Dana Blanchard consider some of the political discussions to arise after the West Coast Port Shutdown.
Socialist Worker
December 16, 2011

IN THE aftermath of the West Coast Port Shutdown on December 12, a debate over tactics has emerged in the Occupy movement. The discussion centers on the role of port workers and Occupy activists' relationship to them.

The December 12 actions were an important step for the Occupy movement, especially in connecting to the struggle of workers against some of the richest and most powerful corporations around. But the future of the movement depends on Occupy activists adopting strategies and tactics that treat workers on the docks--and everywhere else in the economy--as allies and potential supporters, not as opponents.

The call for a port shutdown on December 12 produced community pickets at ports up and down the West Coast, from Anchorage to San Diego--and succeeded in stopping operations, partially or entirely, in Oakland, Portland, Longview, Seattle and Vancouver. At the giant Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, activists collaborated with nonunion port truckers to disrupt operations for several hours at SSA Marine, which is half-owned by Goldman Sachs.

In Oakland, our preparations began weeks before December 12, with rank-and-file longshore workers and other unionists working with Occupy Oakland activists to build support for the shutdown, especially among workers at the port. We knew from this organizing work that the criticisms made by some union leaders and even left-wing writers and academics--that the Occupy movement was calling for industrial action without the support of workers--was false.

On December 12, we had a strong turnout despite the rain and cold--more than 500 Occupy supporters met at a nearby public transit hub for a 5 a.m. march to the port to set up community picket lines at three terminals. By the late morning, we got word that ILWU members had been sent home after the port arbitrator ruled on safety concerns. An even larger march on the port that evening caused the evening shift to be closed down as well.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) publicly disavowed the port shutdown call. But ILWU Local 10 in Oakland has a proud history of recognizing community picket lines and calling in a port arbitrator over safety concerns.

With rank-and-file ILWU members taking the lead, the December 12 action was planned in Oakland with this foremost in our minds--and with the goal of building solidarity with workers on the ports as a crucial means of strengthening the Occupy movement.

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THIS APPROACH helped ensure the success of December 12 in Oakland.

Unfortunately, though, that success was jeopardized by the dangerous actions of a minority of demonstrators on the picket line.

The overwhelming majority of Occupy activists and workers worked together--as planned and democratically decided upon--to organize community pickets that were intended to make an appeal to port workers for support, but not blockade them. This was highly effective.

Nevertheless, a small minority took it upon themselves to try to impose their tactics on the rest of us. Within an hour of establishing our early-morning community pickets, a small group of activists at the Hanjin Terminal picket attempted to use their bodies to stop a semi truck from leaving the port. At least two of them sat down in front of the truck, an extremely dangerous act since the driver could not see them. Others screamed at the driver and spat on his windshield.

Naturally, photographers from the mainstream media swooped in to get their photos of the angry truck driver who "didn't support the action that day"--and not pictures of the several hundred people who were holding down an amazing picket 20 feet away. This only gave credence to the false argument spread by the media that we were trying to "impose" a shutdown on workers, rather than seek their solidarity.

The authors of this article attempted to reason with the group of activists sitting in front of the truck. We asked them to move out of the way and allow the truck to leave, explaining that organizers had agreed to allow drivers who had shown up for work to leave--as the point of our action was to build solidarity with workers at the port, not antagonize them. The port action committee had explicitly agreed on the point that the pickets were not to keep workers from leaving, but only to stop them from going in.

At one point, one of us, Ragina, positioned herself between the truck and the group in question to demand that they get out of the way. One person from this group of activists pushed Ragina against the front grill of the truck in an attempt to use her body to get the truck to stop.

Everyone eventually moved out of the way, but the fact is that the lives of several activists were put at risk during this scuffle.

Another dangerous situation occurred at the Hanjin Terminal picket line when a squad car and sheriff's bus, escorted by a line of riot police, attempted to drive through our line.

Throughout the morning, police were being moved around the port in groups in an attempt to intimate protesters. There was a diversity of people on the picket line--old and young, people holding toddlers, union and nonunion workers. Keeping the pickets organized and safe by preventing panic was important to succeeding in our goal.

Only walking picket lines are considered legally protected free speech, but some activists from the same group that blockaded the truck earlier attempted to form an immobile human barricade to stop police from driving through the line. This was another unnecessary risk, since it gave police a possible excuse to use force to break up our pickets.

The same group of picketers then attempted to provoke police who were pointing "non-lethal" assault rifles at the picket. We believe this act played into the hands of at least one provocateur, who said "the cops are going to smash us anyway, so why should we wait for that to happen."

Once again, the authors of this article found ourselves forced into a dangerous situation. We argued that the best way to stop the police was to maintain the walking picket--and that trying to provoke the police endangered not only picketers, but also the truck drivers and ILWU members who were standing by to observe the situation.

We eventually succeeded in breaking up the human barricade and held our ground with a traditional walking picket. The police backed off after about 20 or 30 minutes.

A few minutes after 10 a.m., a port arbitrator ruled that ILWU members would not be expected to cross our community picket lines. This was an important victory because it meant we had shut down the port without forcing unionized workers to lose a day's wages. Port management then has since sent a press release saying workers will not be paid unless the union takes up the issue with an independent arbitrator. This will be a fight for our allies within the ILWU to take up in the coming days.

Thousands marched to the port of Oakland that evening, but the port authority had by that time conceded defeat and didn't even call in the evening shift. Instead of pickets, a General Assembly of more than 2,500 people formed to discuss next steps.

Occupy Oakland had voted weeks ago that in the event of police repression at any of the actions along the coast, the pickets would be extended in defense of the Occupy movement. The original plan of the port action committee of Occupy Oakland was to vote on whether or not to follow through with this, based on the numbers of people who could participate. But there was never a vote.

Dozens of people from the crowd began to signal their frustration with the lack of democracy, but this was ignored. The facilitators told the crowd that anyone who could not stay for the 3 am pickets should stand up and go and those who could should sit down. Thousands of people picked up their things and left the port. Only about 100 to 150 people remained behind for a disorganized picket at 3 a.m. Fortunately, they did not face a police crackdown, which would have undermined the successes of the day.

What happened at the GA was a missed opportunity to get new people who had come out for the port action involved in a conversation about next steps for our work.

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WHY DID a minority of activists act in such an undemocratic and dangerous manner at the morning picket?

To answer this question, we have to look at the different forces involved in the Occupy movement and the December 12 port shutdown.

The December 12 action was a step forward for the movement because it was about taking action at a crucial chokepoint in the economy that affects the flow of commodities and the realization of profits for the 1 percent. The debate that emerged in Oakland was about how to take action at the point of production.

There are two levels to the debate. The first is a strategic argument about the role of workers at the port. Are they central to shutting down it down or not? Do Occupy activists need to build solidarity with port workers or can they take action independently--and against workers if necessary?

The second level is about the tactics that flow from the strategic question. Should we organize for community picket lines that allow for the greatest possible participation and solidarity with port workers? Or should we build barricades to impose a work stoppage?

An article posted on Bay of Rage, an anti-capitalist website in the Bay Area, titled "Blockading the port is only the first of many last resorts", explains the position of activists who advocated taking action "autonomously" of workers. In a section titled "Power to the vagabonds and therefore to no class," the article states:

We need to jettison our ideas about the "proper" subjects of the strike or class struggle. Though it is always preferable and sometimes necessary to gain workers' support in order to shut down a particular workplace, it is not absolutely necessary, and we must admit that ideas about who has the right to strike or blockade a particular workplace are simply extensions of the law of property.

The first point to make about this statement is that its authors are dismissing the actual demands of the port action committee for December 12. These demands were very much about workers on the docks: first, solidarity with ILWU Local 21 members in Longview, Wash., and their battle against EGT; second, solidarity with port truck drivers in their struggle to gain union rights; and third, a coordinated response by Occupy to the police raids of the camps.

These were the three points we used in talking to port workers and other union forces leading up December 12. Linking up these three struggles helped bring together allies in the labor movement with the Occupy community. We were able to connect with radical rank-and-file union members who want to see more action from their unions. By contrast, the Bay of Rage article accepts that the "real" radicals will have to operate in isolation from workers and union members--and sometimes in direct opposition to them.

As for tactics, the Bay of Rage article goes on to argue that the community pickets were unnecessary:

[W]e have been told time and again that in order to blockade the port, we need to go to each and every berth, spreading out thousands of people into several groups over a distance of a few miles. This is because, under the system that ILWU has worked out with the employers' association, only a picket line at the gates to the port itself will allow the local arbitrator to rule conditions at the port unsafe, and therefore provide the workers with legal protection against unpermitted work action.

In such a situation we are not really blockading the port. We are participating in a two-act play, a piece of legal theater, performed for the benefit of the arbitrator.

If this arbitration game is the only way we can avoid violent conflict with the port workers, then perhaps this is the way things have to be for the time being. But we find it more than depressing how little reflection there has been about this strategy, how little criticism of it, and how many people seem to reflexively accept the necessity of going through these motions.

Once again, this statement shows how little respect the writers have for working people and their capacity for action. Anyone familiar with the history of the working-class movement in the U.S. or anywhere in the world knows that picket lines are more than a "piece of legal theater." The labor movement's victories historically have involved mass support from workers, community members, the unemployed and more.

In the specific case of the ports, the role of community pickets is important in building solidarity and involving wider numbers in the struggle. Rather than imagining that we can substitute for such mobilizations through sabotage or physical barricades, we should be looking to more solidarity actions of this kind to support the labor battles that are sure to come.

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ULTIMATELY, THE wrong-headed ideas expressed in the Bay of Rage article share much in common with the claims made in the mainstream media, among conservative labor leaders and even within sections of the left that the action on December 12 was organized from the outside.

This discounts the role that rank-and-file workers, who are part of Occupy Oakland, played in helping to organize the action. There were extensive discussions between Occupy activists and members of the ILWU and Teamsters, as well as with unorganized port truck drivers, both in the lead-up and immediately after the call to shut down the ports.

By reaching out to and including the voices of rank-and-filers and labor activists, we collaborated with them to build the community picket line, rather than scheming in secret about how to blockade them from going to work. As a result, we were able to weather the attacks in the weeks leading up to the action--a barrage that came not only from the 1 percent and the media, but from union leaders who repeatedly tried to stifle participation in December 12.

The port action committee had a well-organized plan in place for December 12. People in the committee organized picket teams, communications and food distribution. There were teams to plan for speakers and rallies, and to make sure signs and banners were printed and brought to the gates. Organizers were also in close communication with port workers about which terminals had ships and which did not, so we knew which gates to picket.

There was also explicit outreach to talk to self-identified anti-capitalist forces who had declared a march at the same time as the port action--to ask them to agree to the tactics decided for the day.

Ultimately, the proof of these preparations lies in the success of the event itself. Hundreds of people showed up before dawn to put up community pickets before the first shift, and even larger numbers came in the evening. No ILWU members crossed picket lines. Teamsters didn't show up that day, and hundreds of non-unionized truckers stayed away. As for truckers who were at the docks, many showed their support in various ways.

None of that could have been accomplished without the support of workers at the Port of Oakland. But unfortunately, a minority believes its adventurist tactics are more radical and politically superior.

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WHAT'S NEXT? We believe the truly radical step following December 12 will be to build on the alliance between Occupy activists and port workers. We shouldn't be satisfied with shutting down the port for a day, but must instead focus on building a working-class movement with power at the point of production--a project that must include union members, Occupy activists and other working people who are sympathetic to the new activism, but who have not yet joined it.

That's why the disorganizing effects of the General Assembly on the evening of the 12th were a disappointment. The GA could have been a space for thousands of people to collectively decide the next steps for building such an alliance.

Such organizing needs to continue--right now. In a matter of a couple weeks, EGT may try to load its first ship at the scab grain terminal in Longview. Labor and community members in solidarity with the ILWU are already planning caravans to support longshore workers in Longview with their struggle. We need to get as many people as we can to join this caravan from all the local Occupy struggles, from the Bay Area to Washington state.

The Longview struggle is just one example of how we can look ahead to the future of the Occupy movement.

The trigger budget cuts in California are devastating public-sector workers and students, especially at the community college level, and this spring will likely be a time of mass actions on campuses and in teachers unions in response to these cuts. There is already a planned occupation of the state capital on March 5, as well as regional actions on March 1 and possible student strikes throughout February.

In addition, immigrant rights activists and workers, both union and nonunion, are making big plans for a militant action on May Day that would shut down production and target the 1 percent, while linking up with struggles for amnesty and human rights.

These are just a few of the ideas that have been put forward for next steps. There will most certainly continue to be struggle on both a local and national level, and some of what it will do has not even been anticipated yet.

With working people under relentless attack, the Occupy movement has an opportunity to broaden its social base. But to reach that potential, we need to learn the lessons--both positive and negative--of what we just accomplished on December 12.

The most important lesson is that Occupy activists and union members share common interests in the struggle against the 1 percent, and the closer that alliance, the more powerful the struggle will be.

The port shutdown on December 12 also showed us that the November 2 general strike call in Oakland was no fluke--and that the Occupy movement can coordinate for picket-line action between different cities and states. This action has truly raised the bar for what is possible in the movement, if we do our work right.

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ILWU solidarty statement in support of ‘Occupy Wall Street’

October 5, 2011

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

On behalf of 40,000 members in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), I want to thank you for organizing your “Occupy Wall Street” protest in New York City which is inspiring millions of Americans.

Most of us are tired of seeing a handful of the richest corporations and executives behave as though they’re entitled to live like kings at everyone’s expense:

They aren’t paying their fair share of taxes, so schools are cutting back and colleges are
raising fees – leaving students with obscene debts. It’s time for the millionaires – the richest 1% – to start paying their fair share so we can support education and other vital services.

They’re destroying our democracy and right to a voice in the workplace. By making it almost impossible for workers to form unions and negotiate fair agreements, corporate America is dragging down the living standards for all working families.

They’re threatening to destroy Social Security and Medicare for future generations. We can’t allow corporations to privatize and profit from these programs. Instead, we should close the loopholes so corporations and the rich start paying the same contributions as everyone else.

Your decision to bring these and other issues to corporate America’s doorstep is courageous – and involves some risks. We weren’t surprised that some of you have faced beatings and pepper spray from overzealous police. Your crusade to shine a light on the corruption and injustice that’s infecting Wall Street is bound to ruffle some feathers. We’ve experienced some similar rough treatment in Longview, Washington, where ILWU families are also taking a stand against corporate greed. Our fight there is against EGT, a multi-national corporation that took taxpayer subsidies to build a grain export terminal – then betrayed workers and the community.

Like you, ILWU members in Longview have been arrested, beaten and pepper sprayed. We know that justice won’t be won by asking greedy employers for permission or waiting for politicians to pass laws. That’s why we hope that you’ll stand your ground on Wall Street while we do the same in Longview – because An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!

Robert McEllrath
ILWU International President

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Port actions challenge the 1 percent

Alex Schmaus, Francois Hughes and Lee Sustar look at the port actions shaping up from San Diego to Anchorage and beyond, as Occupy activists target union-busting.
Socialist Worker
December 12, 2011

THE OCCUPY movement will hold coordinated community pickets in every major West Coast port city--San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver and Anchorage--on Monday, December 12, despite mounting pressure from employers and some union leaders.

The model for the West Coast effort is the mobilization of some 15,000 people to picket the Port of Oakland during a November 2 day of action. That protest came after police violence against Occupy Oakland nearly killed Iraq war vet Scott Olsen, prompting a call for a general strike in the city.

Now, Occupy activists again want to take action--not just in Oakland, but up and down the West Coast.

While the initial focus of Occupy activists was union-busting by the grain terminal operator EGT in Longview, Wash., the planned pickets will confront other actors on the docks--such as SSA Marine, an anti-labor terminal operator owned by Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs, and the anti-union policies of terminal operators who employ truck drivers to move goods from the docks to warehouses and rail links.


In fact, the date for the action was chosen by Los Angeles port drivers. December 12 is the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an important cultural figure in Mexico, and traditionally a day of protest for the largely immigrant port drivers. The drivers been fighting for years against company policies that treat them as independent contractors rather than employees, a practice that forces drivers to be paid per load rather than per hour, and pay for their own trucks.

As Tara Lohan pointed out on Alternet, 82 percent of the 110,000 port drivers in the U.S. are classified as independent contractors. An additional spur for the drivers' protest in LA was the firing in October of some 26 drivers who work for the Toll Group. The reason: they wore Teamsters t-shirts to work.

Thus, on the eve of the December 12 action, port driver activists and supporters said drivers in LA and Long Beach were prepared to stay away from work, and they were appealing to their counterparts in other cities to act in solidarity.

Teamsters in the port of Oakland were also prepared to stay away from their jobs, said Dana Blanchard, a member of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers who is active in the December 12 effort:

This is a huge contradiction to all the press we are getting. After three organized leafleting shifts at the port, the feeling is also that many of the unorganized port drivers will also not come to work tomorrow. The ILWU has also officially e-mailed its members that they are not going to be escorted in by police, and that many terminals have decided to shut down or have skeleton crews in anticipation of the protests. Overwhelmingly, all of the conversations we have had with port drivers when we flier has been positive.

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PREDICTABLY, SHIPPING bosses denounced the effort in a coordinated advertising campaign in Bay Area newspapers and media outlets.

More surprising has been the response of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Union president Robert McEllrath issued a statement declaring that the Occupy protest was a third-party action not authorized by the ILWU, which cannot call for a work stoppage without violating its contracts.

However, McEllrath's statement outlined steps that union members could take if they felt that the community picket made it unsafe to work--for example, as the result of a large police presence. In that case, members are entitled to notify employers, who would then call upon an arbitrator to make the decision.

But as December 12 approached, ILWU officials ratcheted up their criticism of the community pickets. In an article in Britain's Guardian newspaper, ILWU spokesperson Craig Merrilees was quoted as describing Occupy protesters as "disrespectful, arrogant and misguided." He added: "This is being promoted by a group of people who apparently think they can call general strikes and workplace shutdowns without talking to workers and without involving the unions."

But according to retired ILWU Local 10 member Jack Heyman, ILWU international officials are reacting to pressure from employers, rather than the sentiment in the union rank-and-file to put the heat on EGT in Longview, where the first ship will call on the company's scab grain operation in the next few weeks. He said:

This call by Occupy Oakland for a West Coast solidarity port shutdown is a build-up to when the first ship comes in next month. If Occupy is successful now, then momentum for a coastwide shutdown by longshore workers is highly likely when the scab ship arrives. However, with hostile statements like those emanating from ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees and President McEllrath it drives a wedge between the union and its activist supporters.

ILWU has usually honored community picket lines like the one in San Francisco in 1977 against apartheid. And when the ILWU shut down all West Coast ports on May Day 2008 to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it didn't check with other port workers' unions, like the machinists or the Teamsters.

ILWU union tops have thwarted union democracy at every turn in the Longview struggle--preventing a special caucus or an emergency meeting of all rank-and-file longshoremen in the Northwest. Occupy represents a popular outrage against the excesses of capitalism as exemplified by Wall Street. They should be greeted with open arms by the ILWU, not shunned and castigated, if unions are to prevail against attacks from the employing class.

In fact, rank-and-file ILWU members are also involved in organizing support for the pickets. "I am a longshoreman, and I support the December 12 blockade against EGT," said Anthony Leviege, another member of ILWU Local 10. "EGT is a threat to the survival of the ILWU."

"These ports are public," said Clarence Thomas, a former official and veteran activist in Local 10. "People have a right to come to the port and protest. The ILWU has historically honored picket lines at the port."

Dan Coffman, president of ILWU Local 21 in Longview, has publicly thanked the Occupy movement and Occupy Oakland for supporting Local 21's struggle.

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WHILE THE success of each port action is bound to be uneven, the seriousness with which activists are responding to such an audacious call to action is a sign of the Occupy movement's continuing vibrancy.

Occupy movement supporters along the Gulf of Mexico recently announced that they, too, would join the call by blockading the Port of Houston. This is an ambitious task, however, for several reasons. Houston longshore labor is organized by the International Longshoreman's Association, a more conservative union that doesn't share the ILWU's tradition of honoring community pickets. Moreover, the port of Houston stretches for many miles, making it virtually impossible for a community picket to have much of an impact.

Also away from the West Coast, Occupy Denver plans to show solidarity through a blockade of Wal-Mart's Colorado distribution center, and it has called on all landlocked Occupy supporters to take similar action. And in New York City and Chicago, Occupy activists will target Goldman Sachs with protests as well.

While the impact of the protests will vary widely by city, the December 12 action will have an important impact on the Occupy movement as it debates its next steps following the coordinated police shutdowns of encampments.

For example, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), in the wake of its early endorsement of President Barack Obama's reelection, recently concluded its weeklong "Occupy Congress" actions in Washington, D.C. as part of the union's focus on the 2012 elections. A the same time, Adbusters magazine recently proposed that activists "#OccupyXmas" to disrupt consumer culture.

Occupy Oakland is spearheading a different kind of strategy, which is focused on the struggles of workers at the point of production. As one Occupy Oakland activist put it, "If the mayors of the 1 percent are sharing tactics for class war, then why shouldn't we?"

Occupy Oakland was able to shut down the port on November 2 by setting up community pickets with rank-and-file support. It was crucial to maintain mass community pickets long enough to ensure that a port labor arbitrator rules the picket lines have made it impossible to ensure a safe work environment.

Rank-and-file longshore and trucker support was critical for all of the past Oakland port shutdowns and will be critical for the shutdown on December 12. To build these bonds of solidarity, Occupy Oakland and others on the West Coast have not only been distributing leaflets, but talking with port workers about how to fight union-busting on the waterfront and how to build solidarity between the Occupy movement and organized labor.

By building on this kind of community-labor solidarity seen on December 12 and beyond, we can link the Occupy movement with the effort to organize where workers have power--at the point of production.

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Organizing for the port shutdown

Lee Sustar challenges the assertion that the Occupy movement is trying to impose a shutdown of West Coast docks without support from port workers.
Socialist Worker
December 8

THE OCCUPY movement is trying to strong-arm longshore workers and truck drivers into shutting down West Coast ports December 12--or so say critics of the action.

They're wrong.

Those organizing for action on the docks are neither the outside agitators described by employers nor the ultra-left adventurists snubbed by union leaders and their apologists. Rather, they are a grassroots network that includes rank-and-file longshore union members; nonunion port drivers; longstanding labor militants from a variety of unions; and new activists, union and nonunion, who have joined the Occupy movement to try to challenge the country's economic priorities.


Among those new activists is Scott Olsen, who was critically injured in a police attack on Occupy Oakland. In a statement to ILWU members, Olsen wrote: "You do the work--THEY, the global maritime bosses, profit at your expense. Your safety and your jobs are always at stake."

And there's no sharp divide between Occupy activists and ILWU members and other workers who are also organizing to build awareness of the community picket.

"I think people [on the docks] do have sympathy and feel connected with Occupy as a whole," said Anthony Leviege, an ILWU member for 11 years who is active with Occupy Oakland. Working alongside other Occupy activists to leaflet the docks in recent weeks, he estimated that about 50 percent of the workers he's talked to expressed some sympathy for the December 12 action.

Leviege is active in the Occupy movement for the same reason he is active in the ILWU--to improve the lives of working people, he said. "It's because of my background--coming from the ghettos, coming from poverty, seeing young men die early or go to jail," he said.

David Villegas, a member of ILWU Local 13 in Los Angeles and a former truck driver in the port, also reported a sympathetic reception to the flyers for December 12. "Everyone is wondering if they will stand for something, or fall for nothing," he said.

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THE DECEMBER 12 call to action is a grassroots effort to deepen the links between Occupy and longshore labor. Activists are focusing on multiple targets: EGT, the transnational corporation that's trying to eliminate ILWU jobs at a new grain export facility in Longview, Wash.; SSA Marine, the port terminal operator owned by Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs; Toll Group, a trucking employer that fired 26 Los Angeles-Long Beach drivers in October for wearing Teamster t-shirts to work; and port employers generally for their hard-line opposition to truck drivers' union organizing.

Essentially, the call for the December 12 action reflects an effort by the Occupy movement to tap labor's social power at a key node in the capitalist system.

"For the first time in decades in this country, the labor movement is being confronted with a genuine movement from below, a populist movement that is challenging the very fundamentals of our capitalist system," said Jack Heyman, a retired member of ILWU Local 10 who is building support for the December 12 action. "Occupy is resonating very deeply within the ranks of labor."

The potential of this new coalition--which was key to shutting down the Port of Oakland with a community picket of thousands on November 2--has clearly alarmed employers, who have launched an aggressive advertising campaign to denounce the December 12 effort. The Washington Post carried the same line, declaring that workers don't support the plan.

Those views weren't surprising coming from port bosses and the corporate media. But even Cal Winslow, a labor historian and researcher at the University of California-Berkeley, wrote an article claiming that the action is being organized over the heads of ILWU members and other port workers:

I confess to knowing little about the officers of the ILWU, the same for the rank and file. But now, for better or worse, the case is that neither the officers of the ILWU nor any significant section of its members support the December actions planned by Occupy Oakland.

In fact, veteran activists in Local 10, such as Clarence Thomas, have been publicly building support for the community picket line along with Occupy activists.

And if Winslow is correct that labor was united in rejecting the December 12 action, then it should have been easy for the executive committee of the Alameda Labor Council, which includes the Oakland area, to pass a proposed resolution explicitly opposing the protest. At the council delegate's meeting December 5, a motion to disavow the action was presented by Victor Uno, business manager and financial secretary of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 595, who is also a commissioner of the Port of Oakland.

Uno's resolution to oppose the December 12 action reflects the view of trade union leaders who may be sympathetic to Occupy's criticisms, but who are opposed to militant actions that might destabilize labor's relationship with employers and Democratic Party politicians. Given the support of the executive council, Uno may have expected his resolution to pass fairly easily.

Instead, an hour-long debate ensued, in which most delegates thought that a statement of opposition to the December 12 action would send the wrong message, said Jenna Woloshyn, a member of Teamsters Local 70 in Oakland and a driver at UPS, who attended the meeting.

"The executive committee's argument was that all the unions with workers at the port were not endorsing the action," Woloshyn said. "They failed to mention that just because they were not endorsing didn't mean they were coming out with positions against the action, as this resolution would put the council on record for being. The Teamsters are not actively against the shutdown. Local 70 officials spoke against the proposal."

The debate ended when ILWU Local 10 President Richard Mead, rather than support the motion to repudiate the December 12 action, moved to postpone action on the resolution, effectively defeating it.

If labor council delegates were able to defeat Uno's motion, it was because they were responding to activism on the ground in the ports. Those working to build the December 12 action are relating to longstanding organizing efforts by port drivers. They are also building upon a tradition of ILWU Local 10 of respecting community picket lines that have shut down the docks to protest apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s and Israel today, as well as shipments of cargo to support the U.S. war in Iraq.

Local 10 has a history of taking action over political issues, such as initiating a coastwide port shutdown on May Day 2008 in protest of the Iraq war. Earlier this year, Local 10 shut down the docks in the Bay Area April 4 in response to the AFL-CIO's call for a day of action in support of Wisconsin public-sector workers, who lost bargaining rights through anti-union legislation. The employers promptly sued Local 10 for that action.

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WHAT, THEN, is to be made of ILWU President Robert McEllrath's statement disassociating the union from the December 12 call to action? "Only ILWU members or their elected representatives can authorize job actions on behalf of the union, and any decisions made by groups outside of the union's democratic process do not hold water, regardless of the intent," McEllrath wrote.

McEllrath is certainly correct to point out that ILWU members must democratically decide on the actions of their union. And an official ILWU call for a job action on December 12 would invite legal retribution from employers.

But McEllrath, in fact, mischaracterizes the December 12 action. The Occupy movement isn't attempting to "authorize a job action" by the ILWU, but to establish a community picket line and ask ILWU members and other port workers to honor it on the basis of solidarity.

This isn't a far-out idea, given the ILWU tradition of respect for community picket lines and the union's early support for the Occupy movement. In fact, across the bay, the San Francisco Labor Council passed a resolution in October that declared Occupy San Francisco to be a "sanctioned union strike line." In other words, the labor council recognized that Occupy was a workers' movement deserving of union solidarity.

What's more, even ILWU members who sympathize with Occupy's call for a December 12 action must operate under the constraint of a union contract that bans strikes.

As McEllrath's statement explains, if ILWU members stay away from their jobs December 12, it will be the result of a port labor arbitrator's ruling that the picket lines have made it impossible to ensure a safe work environment.

As Villegas of Local 13 explained, "Our contract says we have to work 365 days a year, no matter what"--and an official call to action would violate that. That's why rank-and-file ILWU members who support the community picket are leafleting the ports alongside Occupy activists.

This dynamic--union members expressing sympathy for militant action that labor officials reject--shouldn't be a surprise to Cal Winslow, an editor of the recent book Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s. In his introduction to the book, Winslow describes the spread of wildcat strikes, actions called without the authorization of union leaders, which accounted for one-third of strikes in the late 1960s and early 1970s:

Wildcat strikers were the shock troops of the "rebellions from below," and their strikes became all but routine elements in contractual disputes and grievance negotiations. The strikers were often repudiations of the union leadership and, implicitly, of the entire postwar system of industrial relations.

Somehow, Winslow, who can write at length about rank-and-file activism 40 years ago, doesn't recognize the initial stirrings of similar militancy today.

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IN FACT, the idea for a protest on December 12 originated not with Occupy Oakland, but with immigrant rights and labor activists in Los Angeles who support the organizing efforts of port truck drivers in the LA-Long Beach ports.

When Occupy Los Angeles labor activists held a meeting November 6 to discuss how to broaden the movement, the idea of an action in the ports was natural. Some 26 drivers at the Toll Group had been fired a few days earlier for their efforts to organize with the Teamsters, and December 12 was a traditional day of protests in Southern California among Mexican immigrants, who commemorate Our Lady of Guadalupe on that date.

After discussions with labor activists in the harbor area, the Occupy LA group decided to focus their protest on SSA Marine, a terminal operator owned by Goldman Sachs and known for anti-labor practices towards port truckers and labor worldwide, said Michael Novick, a retired LA teacher who has been active in the harbor community for years.

The protest isn't intended to have the movement substitute itself for the ILWU, Novick said. "We understand they have limits on what actions they can take, and we can take action as community people." He continued: "We can't put ourselves forward as representing them. But we can represent the issues and the interests of the 99 percent."

As in Oakland, Occupy activists in LA and Long Beach have leafleted the docks and ILWU union meetings and gotten a friendly reception, said Sarah Knopp, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles.

A key moment of building solidarity came December 2 during a four-hour strike by clerical workers, Knopp said. "Leah Marinkovich, a striking clerk, told me, 'What you guys are doing in the Occupy Movement is helping us to put pressure on our bosses to settle.'"

Meanwhile, port trucker activists are debating whether to carry out a port shutdown in LA and Long Beach on December 12, said Ernesto Nevarrez, a harbor community activist who helped the drivers organize the total shutdown of the ports in 2004 and 2006.

While the 2006 action was in conjunction with the nationwide protests against anti-immigrant legislation, the drivers have been fighting since the 1980s for the right to organize a union. Employers regard the drivers as independent contractors who can't form a union without violating antitrust laws--laws that originally targeted corporations.

Over the last week, Nevarrez and other activists distributed flyers to 60 to 70 percent of port drivers, he said. As in previous years, the drivers will meet to decide what action to take. "The decision on whether to shut the port down will come this Friday [December 9] when all the drivers will show up at payday at the companies," he said. "Someone at each company will say, 'Let's talk about it,' and some of the discussions will be formal. They will form a collective, and the collective at each company will reach a consensus."

Of course, there's no guarantee that the port actions will be successful up and down the coasts. That depends on the actions of port drivers and whether the community pickets are large enough to convince an port labor arbitrator that it's "unsafe" for ILWU members to cross the picket lines. That's what happened in Oakland November 2, when some 15,000 activists marched to the port during the evening shift change as part of a general strike call in response to police repression that nearly killed Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen several days earlier.

Now, Olsen himself is appealing to ILWU members to respect the community picket line on December 12. His statement reflects the spirit of the alliance between the labor and Occupy movements:

The bosses have been getting away with it for far too long. We can beat them, but we have to work together--unions, rank-and-file workers and Occupy.

I was on my second pump to Iraq when ILWU--when you--led by your Vietnam vets, shut down the West Coast ports on May Day 2008 to stop the war. The best support I could have asked for in Iraq was from you brothers and sisters who wanted us home, alive and well--sooner, not later. I spent two pumps in Iraq looking for our enemies. Only after coming back home did I discover our greatest enemy--that is the enemy we are fighting now.

Where the Oakland action can draw upon ILWU Local 10's traditions of solidarity and respect for community picket lines, and the LA-Long Beach protesters are linking up with the ongoing port drivers' struggle, Occupy activists in other port cities are still making connections with ILWU members and other port workers.

But by focusing on labor's potential power at the point of production, the December 12 actions point the way forward for the Occupy movement. Everyone who wants to see the revival of a fighting labor movement should support these actions.

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Round up of the December 12 Port Shutdown

Links has a round up of coverage of the Shutdown of West Coast Ports on December 12, by the Occupy Groups up the US and Canadian West Coast. I will be posting some important articles regarding the relationship between Occupy and the labour movement.

While any action by Occupy is likely to draw the ire and opposition of more conservative wings of the labour movement, it is also clear that sections of the leadership the historically militant International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which has given support to the Occupy movement, took a publicly hostile attitude to the shutdown of ports worked by the union's members.

The character of this opposition remains unclear with a number of possible explanations having been raised, hostility by the union to incursions into the ILWU's internal democracy, an effort by the ILWU leadership to separate the union from the action in order to avoid any possible legal action for breaching no strike clauses in the union's contracts, and the development of a more conservative strata within the unions leadership.

In my opinion the lack of clarity of regarding the nature of the engagement or lack of engagement by the ILWU leaderships with the shutdown suggests that a central challenge for progressive movement's such as Occupy, is to build the level of engagement with the labour movement, in order to build real and lasting alliances to empower working people and their communities.

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