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From: "Richard Bucci RizzieroBucci@xxxxxxxxx [marxist_study]"
<marxist_study@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 24, 2018 at 12:00:55 PM EDT
To: Study group <marxist_study@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [marxist_study] Forum: Workers Have the Power!
Reply-To: marxist_study@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Study Group members,
This week we will be meeting for a special presentation at the CUNY Grad
Center, Fifth Avenue and 34th St., Room 5409, at 7:30 p..m. (not the usual
6:30 time).
"Workers Have the Power! The Story of May Day 2008"
This week we are extremely fortunate to have a special presentation by Jack
Heyman, retired member of the executive committee of Local 10, International
Longshore and Warehouse Union. Jack was an organizer of the historic port
shutdown against the US imperialist war on Iraq on May Day, 2008. The
longshore workers closed all 29 ports on the West Coast in this action,
demonstrating the potentially revolutionary power of the working class.
Jack Heyman speaking at Justin Herman Plaza, San Francisco, May Day 2008.
In Iraq, directly under the guns of US imperialism, the courageous Iraqi
workers responded, striking in a powerful demonstration of international
class solidarity against US imperialism (see Iraqi workers' statement below).
The League for the Fourth International actively supported the strike, which
showed the way forward for all the oppressed under the enslavement of the
capitalist system. Only workers actions can end imperialist war and only a
workers revolution can do away with the choking brutality of this system once
and for all.
The following passages are taken from "Historic ILWU Dock Workers’ Action
Points the Way: May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast
Ports," Internationalist 27 (May-June 2008), which is recommended reading for
this forum:
http://www.internationalist.org/int27toc.html
"The ILWU’s historic May Day walkout is the first time ever that an American
union has struck against a U.S. war. Everywhere on the docks, the giant
container cranes had their booms raised, showing they were not working, as if
saluting the longshore workers’ action. It was a dramatic show of strength
that the ruling class can’t ignore or dismiss. 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. Their “symbolic” action was felt all the
way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with
the ILWU. A May Day message from the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq to
the “brothers and sisters of the ILWU” stated:
"The courageous decision you made to carry out a strike on May Day to protest
against the war and occupation of Iraq advances our struggle against
occupation to bring a better future for us and for the rest of the world as
well.... We in Iraq are looking up to you and support you until the victory
over the US administration’s barbarism is achieved.”
"The sight of Iraqi and American workers joining hands in common action is a
powerful show of what could come. These are not empty words on paper. Iraqi
and American dock workers have just shown the world: this is what proletarian
international solidarity looks like. Having demonstrated this, we must now
generalize it and deepen it."
News coverage:
"The workers shut down commerce in 29 ports up and down the Pacific Coast":
CBS news report from San Francisco, May Day, 2008, the day that the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) demonstrated the power of
labor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKzLEjzvtfM
Iraqi workers statement:
On 29 April, Iraqi port workers declared their solidarity with the US
workers' planned action:
"Dear Brothers and Sisters of ILWU in California
The courageous decision you made to carry out a strike on May Day to protest
against the war and occupation of Iraq advances our struggle against
occupation to bring a better future for us and for the rest of the world as
well.
We are certain that a better world will only be created by the workers and
what you are doing is an example and proof of what we say. The labor movement
is the only element in the society that is able to change the political
equations for the benefit of mankind. We in Iraq are looking up to you and
support you until the victory over the US administration's barbarism is
achieved.
Over the past five years the sectarian gangs who are the product of the
occupation, have been trying to transfer their conflicts into our ranks.
Targeting workers, including their residential and shopping areas,
indiscriminately using all sorts of explosive devices, mortar shells, and
random shooting, were part of a bigger scheme that was aiming to tear up the
society but they miserably failed to achieve their hellish goal. We are
struggling today to defeat both the occupation and sectarian militias'
agenda..
The pro-occupation government has been attempting to intervene into the
workers affairs by imposing a single government-certified labor union.
Furthermore it has been promoting privatization and an oil and gas law to use
the occupation against the interests of the workers.
We the port workers view that our interests are inseparable from the
interests of workers in Iraq and the world; therefore we are determined to
continue our struggle to improve the living conditions of the workers and
overpower all plots of the occupation, its economic and political projects.
Let us hold hands for the victory of our struggle.
Long live the port workers in California!
Long live May Day!
Long live International solidarity!"
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Posted by: Richard Bucci <rizzierobucci@xxxxxxxxx>
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