23.04.1998

US union backs wharfies

As Patrick Stevedores and the Australian government continue their attack on the members of the Maritime Union of Australia, class solidarity is finding its expression on both sides of the Pacific Rim.

The leadership of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) met in San Francisco last week to “discuss their options” and work out a strategy. The intial decision, backed by the executive board of the AFL-CIO, calls for a boycott of all Australian imports, including beef and other agricultural products.

But, according to the ILWU, this is only “phase one” of its campaign to support the sacked dockworkers. President Brian McWilliams sees the actions taken by Patrick and the Australian government as “part of a larger global strategy” by shipping companies and various governments to bust maritime workers’ unions around the world.

The ILWU has 60,000 members along most of the North American west coast. The next steps by the ILWU are only speculation, but there is a strong possibility that the longshore union will call strike action in defence of the Australian wharfies. Several union leaders, including McWilliams, were arrested last week, charged with attempting to obstruct the Australian consulate in San Francisco.

Sometime this week, it is expected that the first scab ships from Australia will reach the west coast of the US. When these ships attempt to pull into the ports of Oakland, Los Angeles and Vancouver, they will be met with protests and refusals to unload.

“If there’s a ship that picks up cargo in Australia loaded by scabs, the odds of it being unloaded in a timely fashion are extremely low,” said one union port official. “An Australian dockworker will come out with a sign and picket, or workers will find some sort of a health or safety problem with the goods and refuse to work.”

This is reminiscent of the protests last year in Oakland against the docking of the Neptune Jade, the Liverpool scab ship. A hastily organised picket by supporters of the sacked Liverpool dockers stopped the ship from being loaded anywhere along the west coast of North America.

The ILWU is considered to be one of the more ‘progressive’ unions in the AFL–CIO and a founding affiliate of the recently formed US Labor Party. Any strike action taken is not likely to stay confined to the west coast docks. Already, talk about joint action by the two major maritime unions in the US has been openly discussed.

These kind of discussions by union leaders must be influenced and encouraged by the actions of union members, or else they become impotent moral posturing - at best. The implications of such an ‘influence’ by the union rank and file would go a long way in strengthening the class solidarity between workers on both sides of the Pacific, and around the world.

Jim Paris