Oakland Labor-Centered Mobilization Defies “National Unity”

Defend Immigrants! Defend the Unions!

Letter Appended

Reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 775, 22 February 2002.

OAKLAND—For the first time anywhere, on February 9 organized labor was mobilized here to flex its muscle in defense of its immigrant brothers and sisters targeted under the U.S. rulers’ “war on terrorism.” Some 300 unionists, immigrants, blacks and youth rallied in downtown Oakland in opposition to the USA-Patriot Act, the Maritime Security Act and the anti-immigrant witchhunt. At the core of this demonstration were over 30 dock workers from International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, including members of the drill team. They joined transit workers from Bay Area Rapid Transit, water utility workers from the East Bay Municipal Utility District, printers, federal park workers from San Francisco’s Presidio, day laborers, Asian and Near Eastern immigrants, college and high school students, and the revolutionary Marxists of the Spartacist League to declare that the U.S. working class will fight to defend all the oppressed against their common capitalist class enemy.

In initiating and building this united-front protest, the Bay Area Labor Black League for Social Defense and the Partisan Defense Committee sought above all to win workers to the need to tear through the straitjacket of “national unity” promoted by the U.S. capitalist rulers and break down the poisonous racial and ethnic divisions among the oppressed that they promote. Marching through downtown Oakland, past the headquarters of the shipping employers’ Pacific Maritime Association and the Federal Building housing the government enforcers of the capitalist attacks, the multiracial, working-class protesters chanted: “National unity is a lie—Bosses profit, workers die!” and “Immigrant rights, black rights: Same struggle, same fight—Workers of the world unite!” Banners of the SF Day Labor Program; AFSCME Local 444; National Parks and Public Employees, Laborers International Local 1141 and the Spartacist League joined those of the PDC and LBL on the march.

For many black longshoremen, acting in defense of immigrants—including the unorganized port truckers—represented a conscious break with widespread sentiment that immigrants and blacks are competitors, not allies—a lie cultivated by the capitalist rulers and their labor lieutenants in the trade-union bureaucracy. At the rally, they joined forces with the Filipino Workers Association and with the largely Latino immigrant workers of the SF Day Labor Program, whose spokesman Eduardo Palomo declared: “We are here to resist the Patriot Act, the law that is going to harm all the workers of this nation.... We want all the workers in all parts of this nation to come out to protest this law.” In mobilizing for the rally, Workers Vanguard supporters sought to win workers to the understanding that in defending immigrants, they were defending the whole working class.

This was no abstraction but flesh and blood reality to longshoremen threatened with losing their hard-won union jobs under the background checks mandated by the Maritime Security Act, a law pending in Congress aimed at purging the waterfront of blacks, Latinos and other immigrants and at undermining union power. The political impact of this mobilization spread far beyond those who came to the rally, raising the class consciousness also of the hundreds who took stacks of leaflets to distribute, and the thousands reached through discussion, leaflets and copies of Workers Vanguard.

The protest was built in distributions to key workforces: longshore dispatch, port truckers, bus barns and BART yards, postal facilities, municipal utilities, industries with heavily immigrant workforces organized by ILWU Local 6 and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, in Chinatown and other immigrant neighborhoods, campuses and high schools. The campaign intersected struggles from Santa Clara—where the husband of Alia Atawneh, a Palestinian woman fired in an act of anti-immigrant persecution by Macy’s, endorsed the rally—to Salt Lake City, where hundreds of immigrant airport workers were fired. Solidarity greetings from one of the lawyers representing these workers were read to the protest.

The seriousness of longshoremen at the rally, which Local 10 endorsed, was underscored by the fact that a number of lower-seniority B-men had foregone a trip to L.A. to pick up a weekend’s work, a real sacrifice during a slow month at the Port of Oakland. At the end of the protest, several longshoremen made a point of taking home the mobilization placards on which they had written the name of their union. Discussions afterward at a celebration in a local bar and restaurant grappled with key questions: which way forward for workers, why we need a revolutionary workers party to get rid of capitalism and how to build it, why unions in themselves are not enough. One youth joined the Bay Area Spartacus Youth Club at the party, and a number of workers expressed interest in joining the LBL.

Many longshoremen take a great deal of pride in their union, particularly in the gains that were won for black workers. At the same time, several longshoremen asked us why it took communists to fight to mobilize the social power of labor in defense of immigrant rights and in defense of the unions. To mobilize the multiracial proletariat in defense of immigrants, black people and all the oppressed requires a conscious struggle against the million and one ways the capitalist exploiters, aided and abetted by their labor lackeys, foster the racial and ethnic antagonisms that divide the proletariat and undermine its fighting strength. At bottom this is a question of program and perspective. The worldview of the labor tops—even those of the most “progressive” stamp—is defined by what is possible or “practical” under capitalism, a system which is predicated on the exploitation of labor. We communists pursue another road, one based not only on improving present conditions but fighting to do away with the entire system of capitalist wage slavery.

This rally was held during Black History Month to underscore both the common interests of black and immigrant workers and the need for the labor movement to take up the fight against racial oppression. In a speech for the Labor Black League that was translated into Spanish, Adwoa Oni declared:

“The frenzied anti-Arab and anti-immigrant witchhunt is a deadly danger to all racial and ethnic minorities. This is especially true for the black population, whose forcible segregation at the bottom of this society is rooted in the history of chattel slavery and the defeat of Radical Reconstruction. Black oppression is the very foundation of this racist capitalist system—but also its Achilles’ heel. It’s time to finish the Civil War! Forward to a workers state!”

Death row political prisoner, MOVE supporter and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal sent his endorsement, and a statement of support was read out at the rally. Speaking for the PDC, the legal and social defense organization associated with the SL, Steve Bull called for “mass protests centered on the social power of the labor movement to demand Jamal’s immediate release.” Also endorsing was Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt), the former Black Panther who spent 27 years in prison on a similar government frame-up before mass protest brought about his release. Speaking at the rally, former Panther Kiilu Nyasha brought attention to the plight of Haitian immigrants as well as that of Hugo Pinell and Ruchell Cinque Magee, political prisoners who have spent well over three decades in the prisons of the U.S. capitalist system of racist injustice.

This united-front action intersected contradictions within the labor bureaucracy and exposed how this conservative layer resting atop the workers organizations acts as the key internal obstacle to mobilizing workers power. From the time the new “anti-terror” legislation was introduced in September, ILWU International officials, instead of opposing the MSA, proposed that the capitalists make the ILWU a partner in the “national security” war, including against other sections of dock workers who are heavily immigrant. The Teamsters and East Coast International Longshore Association tops likewise refused to oppose the MSA. It was the ILWU tops who pointed to the port truckers to be targeted by the bill. As the call for the demonstration pointed out: “It is not the job of the workers to enforce the laws, ‘security’ or otherwise, that will be used against them: cops and security guards have no place in the union movement!”

In Local 10, however, with its heavily black membership, there was a lot of pressure from the ranks to do something to oppose this attack. Secretary-Treasurer Clarence Thomas helped build and spoke at the rally. Also present were both business agents, Trent Willis and Jack Heyman, who put the motion at a Local 10 meeting that the union endorse the mobilization. In his speech, Thomas noted, “There are people here today that don’t necessarily share the same political views” but “we’re all here to stand together against the issue of the USA- Patriot Act and the Port Maritime Security Act.” All those at the rally were able to compare openly Thomas’ views with those of the Spartacist League speaker, Brian Manning, as they presented two different perspectives on which way forward for the working class—class collaboration vs. class independence from the capitalists and their state.

Thomas upheld as a model the “legacy of Harry Bridges,” under which in the 1930s “longshoremen refused to load and unload cargo in the form of scrap iron that was destined for Japan.” Far from an act of international working-class solidarity, this boycott was rather very much in line with U.S. imperialism’s battle with their Japanese capitalist competitors over which of these gangs of robbers would dominate the Pacific. The pre-World War II longshore action is an example of the same poison promoted today by the labor tops that pits workers of different countries against each other. This protectionism, premised on defending American capitalism, is part and parcel of the union bureaucracy’s support for the capitalist Democratic Party.

In contrast was the powerful example of Japanese dock workers described in greetings read to the rally from the Spartacist Group of Japan: “To protest Japanese imperialism’s cooperation in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, dock workers near Nagasaki showed some of their potential power by refusing to load Japanese warships bound for the Indian Ocean.” ILWU members also greatly appreciated meeting a young German worker who read greetings to the rally from the Spartakist-Jugend, youth group of the Spartakist Workers Party of Germany, section of the International Communist League.

This joint action by immigrant, black and white workers here in the U.S. against the bloodthirsty U.S. imperialist rulers struck a chord internationally. Reflecting the international character of the world market and common interests of the working class of all nations, greetings to the rally brought attention to the struggles of immigrant workers from Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Basothans in South Africa to North Africans, Turks and Kurds in Europe, from Koreans in Japan to Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants in Australia. A solidarity statement to the rally by Pedro Wasiejko, secretary of international relations for the Central de los Trabajadores Argentinos union in Buenos Aires, declared that in the “profound political and economic crisis” of that country, “the social disciplinarians of today are basically two: unemployment on one side and judicial prosecution of social struggles on the other.”

Other messages of support came from the National Federation of Undocumented Workers of France (Coordination Nationale des Sans-Papiers de France), Australia Asia Worker Links and the Brescia branch of the Italian FIOM (Federation of Metal Workers and Employees), which has been very actively involved in defense of Pakistani, North African and Senegalese immigrants in Italy. Statements were sent by sections of the ICL not only in Japan but Mexico, South Africa, France, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Canada and Australia.

The Oakland demonstration repudiated in action the equation of the working class in the U.S. with the racist, imperialist U.S. state—an equation pushed both by the U.S. ruling class and those who killed thousands of working people in the attack on the World Trade Center, as well as nationalists of all stripes, and widely believed by people throughout the world. The statement by the Grupo Espartaquista de México in particular had a strong impact when read out near the end of the demonstration. Noting that Mexican immigrant workers in the U.S. create “a broad human bridge between the working class of the two countries,” it went on:

“It is of great importance for workers and the oppressed in Mexico to see American workers, blacks, immigrants and youth fighting against the repressive and racist measures of the U.S. imperialist rulers. Down with the lie of national unity!

“A fundamental part of our fight to forge a revolutionary and internationalist workers party in Mexico is to expose the lie of nationalism, an ideology that seeks to deceive the workers, tying them to their own exploiters.... The true allies of the Mexican workers are not their brutal exploiters. Their true allies are you: the American workers fighting for their rights and those of all the oppressed. For joint class struggle against capitalist rulers in Mexico and the U.S.!”

While the demonstration helped workers to concretely see the need for and be part of joint struggle with immigrant workers, radical-minded students who came from as far away as Santa Cruz and Los Angeles were impressed to see the presence of workers who represent the only force that can defeat the imperialist rulers of the U.S. and put an end to racism, exploitation and war. Students who drove up from the University of California at Santa Cruz were joined by a contingent of high school students from San Francisco’s School of the Arts; among others were students from Berkeley High, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State and Oakland’s Laney College.

In contrast to other recent protest demonstrations, this rally was a mobilization of the working class and the oppressed independent of the capitalists, their parties and their state. It was built despite the boycott by most of the rest of the left, who claim to fight for an end to war and for solidarity with immigrants but who will not breach the bourgeoisie’s “national unity” campaign, instead placing their hopes in allying with the liberal Democratic wing of the class enemy. The International Socialist Organization flatly refused to endorse the protest, falsely counterposing a rally at the San Francisco Marriott for largely immigrant hotel workers. The Bolshevik Tendency attended but would not endorse the demonstration; the Socialist Workers Organization and Freedom Socialist Party endorsed but did not attend.

This demonstration illustrated on a small scale what a revolutionary workers party would do. The task ahead of us is to forge such a party, in political struggle against the pro-capitalist misleaders of the working class, which will mobilize all the oppressed in a united struggle for workers power. Those who labor must rule. Join us!

* * * * * *

“We endorse and will help build a united front labor/black demonstration with the following demands: ‘Anti-Terrorist Laws Target Immigrants, Blacks, Labor––No to the USA-Patriot Act and the Maritime Security Act!’ and ‘Down With the Anti-Immigrant Witchhunt!’.”

Endorsers of the February 9, 2002 Mobilization

Mumia Abu-Jamal, Revolutionary Journalist, Death Row, PA

Larry Adams, Local President, Mail Handlers Local 300,* New York, NY

African Students Union, Hunter College,* New York, NY

AFSCME Local 444, Oakland, CA

Al-Awda/Palestine Right To Return Coalition - NY/NJ Committee

Robert Allen, Ethnic Studies, University of California Berkeley*

Amalgamated Transit Union Black Caucus

Asociacion Tepeyac de New York, New York, NY

Association des Palestiniens en France

Marcellus Barnes, President, Amalgamated Transit Union Black Caucus

Jan Bartlett, Producer, Radio 3CR Melbourne,* Australia

Willie Lee Bell, retired Recording Secretary, IAM&AW Local 739 and 1584,* Oakland, CA

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition, Berkeley, CA

Berlin Afrikanisches ImmigrantInnen Projekt, Berlin, Germany

Wanda J. Black, President/Bus. Agent, Local 241, Amalgamated Transit Union,* Chicago, IL

Jackie B. Breckenridge, International Vice President, Amalgamated Transit Union AFL-CIO*

Canadian Arab Federation, Toronto, Canada

Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Metro Toronto Region

CARECEN, Central American Resource Center, San Francisco, CA

Caribbean Students Union, New York, NY

Daniel Carreno, Section Syndicale SUD PTT CRETEIL PFC, France

Leroy Collier, President, National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 2200,* Pasadena, CA

Comité de Lucha Conciencia y Libertad-CGH, Mexico City, Mexico

Coordination Nationale des Sans Papiers, Paris, France

Patricia Osorio Córdova, Sindicato Independiente Nacional de Trabajadores del Colegio de Bachilleres (SINTCB),* Mexico City, Mexico

Michael Crahan, President, LIUNA Local 1141,* San Francisco, CA

Day-Mer, Turkish/Kurdish Community Centre, London, England

Saikou A. Diallo, President, Amadou Diallo Educational Humanitarian & Charitable Foundation,* Maspeth, NY

Ron Dicks, V.P. for Political & Legislative Action, International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers Local 21,* San Francisco, CA

Filipino Workers Association, Richmond, CA

Freedom Socialist Party

GEW, Landesverband Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Nicholas Harrigan, Love & Rage,* Sydney, Australia

Leon Harris, Interim Secretary-Treasurer, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 6, Oakland, CA

John Holmes, Delegate, Representative Assembly, Typographical Sector, Northern California Media Workers Union #39521, CWA*

Mustapha Houamed, Secretary, Student Committee for Peace in Palestine, St. Denis University, Paris, France

Paul Howes, Organising & Research Assistant, Labor Council of New South Wales,* Sydney, Australia

Hakim Husien, Chicago Chapter President, Palestine Aid Society,* Chicago, IL

International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (Sydney) Inc., Sydney, Australia

International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6, Oakland, CA

International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, San Francisco, CA

Internationalist Group

Geronimo ji Jaga

Justice Action, Sydney, Australia

Kaws.El.Karama (newspaper), Tunis, Tunisia

Zak Khanfar, Santa Clara, CA

Randell Kim, previous 2nd Vice President, AFSCME Local 444

Fidan Kucuktepe, Kurdish, Turkish Human Rights Committee, Melbourne, Australia

Kurdish, Turkish Human Rights Committee, Melbourne, Australia

La Raza Centro Legal, San Francisco, CA

Labor Black League for Social Defense, Oakland, CA

Labor Council for Latin American Advancement - SF (LCLAA), San Francisco, CA

Latino Workers Center, New York, NY

Adam Lincoln, Industrial Workers of the World,* Sydney, Australia

Patricia Loya, Executive Director, Centro Legal de la Raza,* Oakland, CA

LTS-Contracorriente, Mexico City, Mexico

Stephen Lysaght, President, East Bay Area Local, American Postal Workers Union,* Walnut Creek, CA

Patricia Macarthy-Schaefer, Advisor, Berlin Afrikanisches ImmigrantInnen Projekt, Berlin, Germany

Bro. Joel Magallan, S.J., Executive Director, Asociacion Tepeyac de New York, New York, NY

Thomas Mahoney, Local Rep, Finsbury Park Group, RMT*, London, England

Fausto Basurto Maleno, Secretary of Political Matters, Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria Química, Petroquímica, Carboquímica, Similares y Anexos de la República Mexicana, CTM, Local 97, Michoacán, Mexico

Ronald Malone, Shop Steward, HERE Local 2,* San Francisco, CA

Martin M. Manteca, Executive Director, Pilsen Alliance, Chicago, IL

Poumier Maria, Maitre de conférence, Université Paris VIII*

Brian McWilliams, SFLC delegate, International Longshore and Warehouse Union,* San Francisco, CA

Charles Minster, Steward and SFLC delegate, National Park and Public Employees, LIUNA Local 1141,* San Francisco, CA

National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)

Eugene “Gus” Newport, former Mayor, Berkeley, CA*

NY Labor Black League for Social Defense, New York, NY

Kiilu Nyasha, Producer/Programmer, “Connecting the Dots” KPOO 89.5 FM,* San Francisco, CA

October 22nd Coalition, San Francisco, CA

Gary Okihiro, Professor, Columbia University,* New York, NY

One World Society, Trinity College,* Dublin, Ireland

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Ontario, Canada

Béhija Ouezin, Citoyennes des 2 rives,* Paris, France

David D. Owen, Executive Board Member, Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 308,* Chicago, IL

Pacific Islanders’ Club, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA

Partisan Defense Committee

Raylene Pileggi, Regional Education Organization Officer, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Metro Toronto Region

Pilipino Workers Center of So. Cal., Los Angeles, CA

Pilsen Alliance, Chicago, IL

Politistiko Kentro ton Laon tis Anatolis (Gefira), Athens, Greece

Radical Women

Agustin Ramirez, International Organizer, International Longshore and Warehouse Union*

Raza Recruitment and Retention Center, Berkeley, CA

Revolutionary Reconstruction Club @ Bronx Community College, Bronx, NY

German Reyes, Shop Steward, SEIU Local 87,* San Francisco, CA

Wilson Riles, candidate, Riles for Mayor,* Oakland, CA

Eduardo Rosario, Vice President, GCIU Local 4N,* and President, LCLAA-SF, San Francisco, CA

Michael Rossman, archivist, Free Speech Movement Archives,* Berkeley, CA

Stephanie Ruby, Secretary-Treasurer, HERE Local 2850,* Oakland, CA

Renée Saucedo, Director, SF Day Labor Program, San Francisco, CA

SF Day Labor Program, San Francisco, CA

Gordon Saticieli, Accredited Union Representative, Sydney East Letters Facility, Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union,* Sydney, Australia

Section Syndicale SUD PTT CRETEIL PFC, France

Earl Silbar, Chief Steward, AFSCME Local 3506,* Chicago, IL

Dwight James Simpson, Professor, International Relations Department, San Francisco State University,* San Francisco, CA

Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria Química, Petroquímica, Carboquímica, Similares y Anexos de la República Mexicana, CTM, Local 97, Michoacán, Mexico

Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (SITUAM), Mexico City, Mexico

Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, ESIA-IPN, Tecamachalco, Mexico City, Mexico

Donald A. Smith, Executive Board-Trustee, NALC,* Pasadena, CA

Stephen Noble Smith, Living Wage Campaign,* Cambridge, MA

Socialist Workers Organization

SOS Struggle of Students, Hamburg, Germany

Spartacist League/U.S.

Spartacus Youth Club, San Francisco Bay Area

M. Still, Staff Rep, National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport,* London, England

Student Committee for Peace in Palestine, St. Denis University,* Paris, France

Senfo Tonkam, Chairman, SOS Struggle of Students, Hamburg, Germany

Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (STUNAM), Mexico City, Mexico

David Villarruel Velasco, Secretario de Relaciones y Solidaridad, Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City, Mexico

Ted Wang, Policy Director, Chinese for Affirmative Action,* San Francisco, CA

Everette Whitfield, Steward, SEIU Local 73,* Chicago, IL

Ilona Wilhelm, Pressesprecherin, GEW, Landesverband Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

John Williams, Shop Steward, General Motors Holden, Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union,* Melbourne, Australia

Alejandro Echevarría Zarco, Comité de Lucha Conciencia y Libertad-CGH, Mexico City, Mexico

Steve Zeltzer, Bay Area Workers Democracy Network,* San Francisco, CA

Gerald Zero, Secretary-Treasurer, Teamsters Local 705,* Chicago, IL

*Organizational affiliation for identification purposes only. Speeches at Bay Area Mobilization

“Black Rights, Immigrant Rights Go Forward Hand in Hand”

* * * * *

We print below in excerpted form a selection of speeches from the February 9 rally. In addition, the crowd also heard from Eduardo Palomo of the SF Day Labor Program; John Holmes of the Typographical Sector, Northern California Media Workers Union No. 39521; Kiilu Nyasha, producer/programmer of “Connecting the Dots” (KPOO 89.5FM) and Mike R. of the Bay Area Spartacus Youth Club.

Charles Minster

Steward and San Francisco Labor Council delegate, National Park and Public Employees, LIUNA Local 1141

I bring you apologies from my president, who couldn’t be here but who has endorsed this demonstration. He’s a Vietnam veteran and is very concerned about the erosion of our civil liberties since 9/11. We as a union at the Presidio are under attack by the government, which is trying to privatize that park; if they’re successful there, they’ll try and privatize the parks around the country. As it’s come out in the paper recently, they’re going to try and privatize Amtrak. We know what this privatization means if we look around the world at what’s been happening. In Argentina the water supply was privatized and Enron became the owner of the water supply of Buenos Aires. They milked it, they threw the workers they could on the street, and took the money and ran.

We’re here today to defend the immigrant population against the attacks of this government. It’s always the case when there’s an economic decline—”let’s kick the immigrants around.” That’s the way this government gets the average working stiff not to look above at those who are stealing from him left and right, but to try to kick that person that’s below him. I would let anybody in the labor movement know this: Unless we as an organization, the AFL-CIO, defend the immigrants in this country, we won’t have a damn chance of organizing anybody in this country because today the immigrant population makes up a good percentage of the workforce and especially of the unorganized workforce. In the private sector over 90 percent of the workforce is unorganized. Every one of us who’s a trade unionist should be an organizer to defend the immigrant population and win them to our side.

Adwoa Oni

Bay Area Labor Black League for Social Defense

The Labor Black League for Social Defense stands for mobilizing the multiracial working class, leading all the oppressed, in a united struggle against the brutal system of racist oppression that is capitalist America. Fraternally allied to the Spartacist League, a multiracial revolutionary Marxist organization, the Labor Black League is part of the revolutionary movement of the workers against the bosses and for socialism.

To line up the population behind their war-crazed ambitions abroad, both capitalist parties, the twin parties of capital, the Democrats and Republicans, are fanning the flames of patriotic bigotry through jingoistic “united we stand” anti-immigrant campaigns. They are fostering the false notion that the ruling class has common interests with the workers even as living standards plunge and the ranks of the unemployed grow. This racist lie means accepting second-class status for black people and denial of citizenship rights for the foreign born. This assault has particularly targeted immigrants of Near Eastern origin. The racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims is promoted by Attorney General John Ashcroft, a lover of the Confederate flag, the bloody flag of slavery and racist terror.

Many black people buy into the capitalist rulers’ campaign to pit American-born workers against immigrants. The racist white ruling class promotes the revolting lie among black people that poor immigrants are the reason why blacks continue to be forcibly segregated at the bottom of this society. This lie is aided and abetted by black demagogues like Louis Farrakhan. He denounces the small Arab and Asian ghetto shopkeepers as “bloodsuckers,” thereby diverting black people away from a united struggle with immigrants for equality.

At the same time immigrants are taught to despise black people by swallowing wholesale the racist filth spread by the ruling class that the black masses remain at the bottom because they lack a “work ethic.” Immigrant workers must grasp that the fight against black oppression is central to any struggle to defend democratic rights in America. Black rights, immigrant rights go forward hand in hand and our struggles advance the cause of emancipation of the whole working class.

Our program of revolutionary integrationism means, as Karl Marx put it, “Labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.” This emancipation is only possible in a socialist egalitarian society based on the fullest integration of black people. We, the workers—black, white, Hispanic and Asian—create the wealth of society. Those who labor must rule!

American workers must rise up from their knees, fight for their own interests with no regard to the interests or property rights of the capitalist exploiters. The main obstacle to such independent political action by the working class is political loyalty to the Democratic Party. So black Bay Area Congresswoman Barbara Lee cast the sole vote against giving Bush a blank check for war powers. But her vote also served to foster the illusion that the racist Democratic Party, the party of Jim Crow, the party of massive prison construction and wholesale welfare destruction, can be “pressured” to serve the interests of workers, blacks and immigrants. Black Democrats like Lee are positioning themselves to contain and head off increasing discontent as economic recession and racist repression devastate the working class. But as Malcolm X once said, a vote for the Democrats is a vote for the Dixiecrats.

The Labor Black League stands for the building of a revolutionary workers party that champions the cause of all the oppressed. It is time to fight or starve! For a world without racial oppression, without imperialist war, join the Labor Black League for Social Defense and fight for a socialist future!

Guillermo Ponce de Leon

Filipino Workers Association

Warm revolutionary greetings to all!

The Filipino Workers Association is supporting the struggle of the immigrants for the protection of their rights. These are called the basic human rights. We are also demanding justice for the baggage screeners at the airport. I read in the papers that about 800 baggage screeners lost their jobs because of the citizenship requirement, even if they are technically competent.

Twice in about the last two or three weeks, we held demonstrations in front of the Philippine consulate in San Francisco, at 447 Sutter Street, where we decried the situation of the Filipino workers plus, of course, do you know that U.S. troops now have been introduced in the Philippines? The scenario is a repeat performance of Vietnam. You know, they sent in troops—right now, advisers, trainers, et cetera, and then later on we know that the number of troops will increase, and so they’ll no longer just be operating as advisers but as regular units, maybe battalion strength or even regimental strength or even division strength. So, the thing is, many would get killed, and among those who would die will be American youth that were being sent to fight against the New People’s Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It’s sad, but we have to do something now to wake up the American public.

There was a Filipino who wrote a letter to the editor, to the San Francisco Chronicle, and he said he saw the demonstration in front of the Philippine consulate on Sutter Street and they were airing the same “tired anti-imperialist slogans.” Now this gentleman is an idiot, actually, because the reason why there are so many immigrants in the United States, the reason why we are here, is because of imperialism; that’s the reason. Because imperialism impedes the industrialization of our country, and year to year the backward agricultural sector keeps on supplying labor which cannot be absorbed by industry. So what will they do now? What will the citizens of the Philippines do? They will go abroad to pursue survival; they’ll go to Saudi Arabia, they’ll go to Kuwait, they’ll go to Canada, they’ll go to the United States, and so on. So that’s the reason why we are here. And therefore, instead of saying it’s a “tired slogan of anti-imperialism” we should in fact shout “Down with U.S. imperialism!”

Steve Bull

Partisan Defense Committee (speaking immediately following the statement by Mumia Abu-Jamal)

You have just heard the words of a powerful spokesman for all the oppressed—a man who as a young Black Panther walked these very streets in Oakland when he worked on the Panther newspaper, honing his skills as a journalist.

Jamal continues to speak out so eloquently—unbroken and unbowed—from his death row cell. We must not let them bury Jamal alive. Workers, minorities and all the opponents of racist capitalist repression must mobilize mass protests centered on the social power of the labor movement to demand Jamal’s immediate release.

There are those who still persist in calling for a new trial for Jamal—an innocent man, sent to death row for his political views in a racist frame-up to once again be dragged before the very forces that railroaded him in the first place! I ask you today: Can we expect justice from a state that assaults and arrests striking workers and labels them terrorists, as was done to the Charleston Five? [roars of “No!”] Can we expect justice from a state that rounds up immigrants and deports them? Hell no! Jamal should be freed!

We place no confidence in the capitalist courts. Rather we look to the power represented here today of the working people and the oppressed engaged in social struggle. That is what has kept the executioner at bay—mass protest in this country and internationally, especially by trade unions representing millions of workers worldwide. Jamal’s freedom and the fight for black liberation are inextricably linked to the fight for the emancipation of labor as a whole.

Steve De Caprio

October 22nd Coalition Against Police Brutality and Repression

I’m with the October 22nd Coalition Against Police Brutality and Repression. We stand here united against the USA-Patriot Act. We have documented 5,000 people killed by the U.S. police in a span of 12 years; that’s 5,000 people dead and counting.

The October 22nd Coalition looks at the USA-Patriot Act as a green light for more brutality and more repression when we’re already in the midst of an epidemic of police violence. This epidemic did not stop on September 11th and it did not start on September 11th. This is just giving a green light for more: more killings, more repression and now sweeps of immigrants. We stand united against this repression and against this brutality with all of you here today, and thank you for having this event, and I really appreciate the people who organized it.

Clarence Thomas

Secretary-Treasurer, ILWU Local 10

Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. I’m glad that I didn’t hear any snickers when my name was called. That happens on many occasions, and I always respond in this fashion: The judge and I had nothing to do with selecting our names, but we’ve had a hell of a lot to do with our reputations, and I’m proud of mine.

The first thing I’d like to say today is that this is an important occasion. Let’s not worry about how many people are here today. The important thing is that there are people here today that don’t necessarily share the same political views, who don’t have the same political agendas, because this is a united-front effort. We’re all here to stand together against the issue of the USA-Patriot Act and the Port Maritime Security Act. So let’s give a round of applause for us being here today. [applause]

This Port Maritime Security Act is a terrible thing. It reminds me of what longshoremen endured during the 1950s when the Magnuson Act was in effect. And what that did was target people who worked on the waterfront for their political views. If you were a Communist, on the left, or were a person who spoke out against the government during the McCarthy era, you were forbidden from working military cargo. Before that law was subsequently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, thousands of dockworkers’ lives were disrupted, and many of them had to leave the waterfront. So this is nothing new for longshoremen, and many of our young members who are here today need to understand that.

We are the union that refused to load ships destined for South Africa. When Nelson Mandela came to the Bay Area after his release, he acknowledged the work of the ILWU. During the legacy of Harry Bridges, one of the founders of this great union, longshoremen refused to unload and load cargo in the form of scrap iron that was destined for Japan. We have a long history of speaking out on issues of economic and social justice, and we know that the government does not like that, the employer does not like that.

So we see this as another move, with these background checks, to undermine the authority and the power of unions, because this is what it does: when people who may have committed, let’s say, an indiscretion—“youthful indiscretion” is what Bush described his run-ins with the law; he said it was “youthful indiscretions.” Well, that also applies to us, too. Many of our people have committed youthful indiscretions. But more importantly, racial profiling has targeted blacks, people of color, and our union is one of the most diverse unions in the country. So we see the background checks as a means of determining who can and cannot work on the waterfront. And that is wrong.

In 1934 a historic strike was engaged by our union that shut down the entire city of San Francisco. One of the principles of that strike had to do with our having our own union hall, because the employer and the bosses were determining who could work. Here we are again, brothers and sisters, with these background checks determining who can and cannot work. And that is wrong. We must come together, I don’t care how long it takes, to get that message across.

What I would like to do right now is to lead you in a chant. And it goes like this: To heck with background checks! An injury to one is an injury to all!

Brian Manning

Spartacist League/U.S.

We’re showing that we have some power today, that these attacks on immigrants and workers will not go unanswered—and believe me, people are watching this all over the world. This is the first effort to mobilize the power of the working class independently, against “national unity” here in the belly of the American imperialist beast.

The liberals and reformists assert that the system can be more humane, more just, if only there were a few cosmetic changes. But capitalism cares for nothing but profit, and there’s millions of starving broken bodies, millions of corpses, from Argentina to Iraq to Afghanistan, to prove it.

The attacks on immigrants and the working class that we are addressing at the rally today cannot be separated from the broader aims of the ruling class. The American colossus, waving the criminal destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 like a bloody shirt, lashed out at Afghanistan to assert its unchallenged supremacy as the world’s nuclear cowboy. Now the American imperialists are plotting their next moves in an open-ended “war on terrorism”—be it attacks on Iraq, Iran or North Korea. We defended Iraq and then Afghanistan when they were attacked by the imperialist war machine, and we will do so again.

The imperialists are able to go unchecked only because of the destruction of the Soviet workers state. In Afghanistan, when the Soviets intervened against the woman-hating mujahedin in 1979, we said: Hail Red Army! For once, the Stalinist bureaucracy was unequivocally on the side of social progress, offering the possibility of extending the social gains of the 1917 Russian Revolution to the downtrodden and impoverished Afghan peoples, particularly the brutally enslaved women. When the Soviets withdrew in 1989, it was a colossal betrayal which opened the door to capitalist counterrevolution throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Now that the Taliban is in the sights of the ruling class, the fake lefts, groups like the ISO and Socialist Action, rail against them. But when the U.S. was arming the anti-Soviet mujahedin, they echoed the imperialists and lined up against the Soviet Union. The RCP, the parent group of the October 22nd Coalition, even recently bragged that Maoists were fighting alongside the mujahedin against the Soviets! Not surprisingly, the same scoundrels applauded the destruction of the USSR, which we defended till the bitter end, despite its Stalinist degeneration.

So the bourgeoisie is screaming for blood, but also the agents of the ruling class within the working class—the trade-union bureaucrats—are doing the same. AFL-CIO head John Sweeney says that “no sacrifice is too great” for workers to make in the U.S. capitalists’ reactionary “war on terror.” The labor bureaucracy is the top layer of the unions which long ago separated itself from its working-class base and which sees through the same lens as the capitalists and their government. It conciliates bourgeois authority, both political and juridical, and that’s where the poison is. So the ILWU International won’t oppose the Maritime Security Act but are trying to blunt it. But you can’t modify the weapon that the bosses want to use to beat down the workers.

The ILWU International is offering longshoremen to police the docks while pointing to the port truckers to be targeted by the MSA. This is poison, like protectionism is poison, like the anti-Japanese chauvinism during World War II—a war between many imperialist powers to divide up the world—was protectionist poison. Now, it is not the job of the workers to enforce the laws, “security” or otherwise, that will be used against them. Cops and security guards have no place in the union movement.

The trade-union bureaucrats are the agents of the capitalists, and you can see that in particular by the role of the trade-union bureaucrats tying the working class to the Democratic Party. You cannot have a government that serves two masters. The workers and the capitalists have irreconcilable interests: the capitalists want to extract as much profit as possible, drive down wages, etc. The capitalists have a state to help them do this—the cops, the courts, the prisons—and then they try to scam you and say this is democracy. Well, it isn’t a democracy, it’s a ball and chain, and the trade-union misleaders telling you to vote for the lesser evil, they’re the chain tying you to the ball. A class-struggle leadership in the trade unions must be forged, a leadership that knows who our friends are and who our enemies are. We need a workers party to fight for a workers government.

In fighting every injustice and every oppression, we in the Spartacist League have the aim of making the working class as a whole conscious of its historic tasks: bringing down this whole system of greed, exploitation and war that is capitalism. It’s necessary to fight, and in the process forge a party of professional revolutionaries that acts as a tribune of the people—addressing questions like the oppression of women, the right to abortion; a party that fights against anti-gay bigotry; a party that recognizes the centrality of the fight against black oppression in the fight for socialist revolution. Join us in this fight!

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It Took $$$ to Mobilize in Defense of Immigrant Rights

Building the successful February 9 labor/black/immigrant mobilization in Oakland cost a lot of money for posters, thousands of flyers and other demonstration expenses. Show your support for this crucial labor-centered protest! Send donations to: Partisan Defense Committee, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013-0099. Please earmark checks “Immigrant Defense Demonstration.”

Letter: The Fight for Geronimo's Freedom

13 March 2002
Los Angeles

With other members and supporters of the Spartacist League’s L.A. branch, I participated in the Oakland February 9 mobilization in defense of immigrants, blacks and labor. I appreciated the excellent coverage of the rally in WV. However, in explaining that Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt), the former Black Panther who spent 27 years in prison on a government frame-up, endorsed our protest, we incorrectly wrote that “mass protest brought about his release” (“Defend Immigrants! Defend the Unions!” WV No. 775, 22 February).

This is the fault of the trade-union tops who rarely mobilize their ranks to protect their own economic interests, much less struggle in defense of blacks, immigrants and women. Rather, the main mobilizations by the union bureaucrats are to get out the vote for the Democrats, demonstrating their fundamental role as the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class. As we wrote in “Mobilize Labor/ Black Power to Free Geronimo!” (WV No. 645, 10 May 1996): “It’s time to build a working-class party which mobilizes its forces independent of the capitalist state and takes up the battles of the poor and oppressed in this country.”

Comradely greetings,
Valerie W.