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	Workers Vanguard No. 1117	8 September 2017

Report from IBEW Militant

We received the following report on September 2 from a militant in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 6 in the Bay Area.

Word of the motion passed by the ILWU Local 10 to shut the port on August 26th and lead a march to stop the alt-right Patriot Prayer rally in Crissy Field San Francisco hit our small group of anti-fascists in the IBEW like a bolt of lightning. We had been organizing and educating electrical workers in the construction industry for months on the deadly fascist threat. We immediately began to work to have our local endorse an official contingent of IBEW members to join with the ILWU. We put a call out to our brothers and sisters, attended organizing meetings and had our own. But, at each step the ILWU leadership stepped away from the original motion’s intent.

First, we heard that the work stoppage was disavowed, then the start of the march was moved from the ILWU 10 Hall to a new location. Word came that the union leaders in S.F. were having meetings with the mayor who publicly called on people to stay home or to join in diversionary protests “against hate” on the other side of town from where the alt-right and fascists planned to rally. Two days before the march, our local IBEW leadership was pulling the official status of our contingent because they had been told by the Local 10 president that it wasn’t an official ILWU march.

Many IBEW members, particularly black members who rightfully feared they would be particularly targeted, had expressed solidarity with our aims but also the fear of the violence from the fascists and the cops. Our determination to have a disciplined contingent, ready to defend itself from right wing attack as well as ready to retreat as a group in case of any police violence, was convincing many that this was going to be a serious labor mobilization.

Before the canceling of the now unofficial ILWU march, we were looking to see as many as 50 members of the IBEW march. We had heard that the members of HERE 2 [hotel and other service workers union] would also be coming out and that Painters from the Portland union local would be coming as well. When our small group of IBEW members gathered the morning of the 26th we numbered but 14. We talked with members of the Internationalist Group [IG]. They admitted that at the ILWU hall that morning the dispatch hall was open and workers were told to go to work. There would be no ILWU march, official or otherwise.

Later that night, I read the cynical piece on the Internet by the Internationalist Group claiming that the ILWU was key to running off the fascists. Over our week of organizing we saw firsthand how the labor bureaucracy works to demobilize workers struggle as the ILWU leadership rolled back the motion passed by their members to shut down the port and march as a union to stop the fascists. When we arrived with our small numbers to what had been the announced site of the ILWU-centered rally, we were alone other than a handful of Refuse Fascism members and two supporters of the IG.

The IG confirmed that after the 6 a.m. morning photo op at the ILWU hall that the longshoremen had gone to work or gone home. Later in the day we marched with the IG and members of the Painters Union in Portland chanting about the need for labor action to smash the fascists and for the unity of the workers of the world. We chanted up with the workers and down with the fascists as we joined those that had come out to try and confront the alt-right at Alamo Square. The crowd was excited to see an organized contingent of labor, even relatively small and unofficial. Imagine what it could have been like with hundreds of us marching as union contingents instead of 20, marching simply as individual members.

Knowing the IG’s history and centrist politics I was not too surprised when I saw their article that evening claiming a great victory by the ILWU. While sounding all the right revolutionary wording, it completely glosses over the treachery of the ILWU leadership. Many of my co-workers that came out that day were more than confused by this piece. They could not understand if the members of the IG were delusional; we had all seen the actions and heard the words of the ILWU leadership all week! For me it is clear, like the rest of the reformist left, the IG capitulates to a wing of the trade-union bureaucracy and seeks to simply give it a more revolutionary cover than some of the more openly reformist socialist groups. What is desperately needed is the fight to build a principled, programmatically based class struggle opposition to the current pro capitalist misleaders in the unions as part of the fight to build a Revolutionary Workers Party.