Oakland

ILWU Work Stoppage Protests Lynch Rope Provocation

Finally! A powerful, integrated trade union flexed its muscle against the growing threats of white-supremacists and fascist gangs who think they are riding high in Trump’s America. On May 25, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 walked off their jobs when a hangman’s noose, the symbol of racist terror in America, was found at the SSA terminal in the Port of Oakland. This is the second time in just over two weeks a noose has been found at the terminal, a calculated and deadly threat against the union, particularly the black members, who make up a majority of the Bay Area local. Longshoremen told WV that the Local 10 leadership had put out a protest statement alerting the membership to the first noose only days before the second one was discovered. Earlier, in November, on the heels of Trump’s election victory, racist graffiti targeting black people was found scrawled on a yard crane at the SSA terminal. This time, the union took action, shutting down the terminal for half a day.

The noose is a grisly hallmark of more than 400 years of racist reaction, invoking the lynch mobs that brutally murdered thousands of black people and the terror of the KKK nightriders. As ILWU Local 10 secretary-treasurer Derrick Muhammad told the press: “Our workforce is more than 70 percent African American. Considering the history that black people have in America, this kind of thing is not good.... When you have 80,000-pound boxes and fast-moving equipment, you want to feel safe in that environment. Then when you must worry about racism and hatred, that just adds to the discomfort.”

Sneering at the threat posed, an arbitrator ruled that the noose did not “qualify as a legitimate health-and-safety issue,” and the longshoremen were ordered back to work. Stopping such work actions is the whole purpose of “neutral” arbitrators, whose job is to enforce class peace on behalf of the employers. Now, the Port of Oakland claims that SSA is launching an investigation and “taking steps to prevent a reoccurrence.” There should be no illusion that the SSA bosses, who are notorious for slave-driving speedup and dangerous equipment, have even the least bit of concern for the “health and safety” of longshore workers. Moreover, the racial and ethnic hostilities that feed fascist terror are fostered by the employers, the better to divide and conquer the workers. The union must rely on its own strength, centered on its main weapon: the power to cut off the bosses’ profits through stopping work and other actions that are based on the collective strength and solidarity of the membership.

Fascist terror is a clear and present danger. Only one day after the ILWU work stoppage, a Portland fascist screaming racist and anti-Muslim abuse at two women murdered two men, Ricky John Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, who had heroically come to the women’s defense. This follows the racist killing of a 23-year-old black college student in Maryland on May 20. A couple of months earlier in New York City, a 66-year-old black man, Timothy Caughman, was stabbed to death by a white-supremacist wielding a 26-inch sword. Among the nine churchgoers massacred by fascist Dylann Roof in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 were relatives of ILA longshore workers.

The need for mass, integrated mobilizations based on the power of the multiracial working class to smash the fascists is urgently posed. We salute the ILWU members whose work stoppage gave a small example of that power in action. In carrying out their work stoppage, ILWU members were acting not only in their own defense but also in defense of all port workers. The action was also in the interests of the port truck drivers, many of whom are immigrants. To go forward, the workers must understand that their strength lies in fighting independently of the employers and all the agencies and political parties that represent the bosses’ interests.

The lynch rope is meant to invoke the KKK race-terrorists, who served as the shock troops in robbing black people of the promise of freedom in the aftermath of the Civil War. They went on to become the enforcers of Jim Crow segregation in the South, aiming their fire against any who opposed it, including union organizers. Klan terror helped preserve the states of the former Confederacy as an open shop, low-wage haven for American capitalism. This system is now taking over the North, thanks in no small part to the trade-union misleaders who have refused to mobilize labor’s power, instead promoting the election of the capitalist Democratic Party as the answer.

Now, emboldened by the “Make America Great Again” racism of the Trump administration, a new breed of fascists is mobilizing in the streets. Wearing suits and ties and talking of defending “Western Civilization,” the fascists are currently taking aim at left-wing activists and immigrants. But their purpose is the same as that of their Klan forebears—to terrorize the multiracial working class and keep black people “in their place.” With labor struggle at an all-time low, the American ruling class currently has no need to unleash their fascist thugs to destroy the workers movement. But they hold them in reserve. It is in the vital interest of the entire working class to mobilize to crush the fascists in the egg. In the course of such battles, the workers will be armed with the consciousness of their power as a class. That power must be mobilized to smash the shackles of racist U.S. capitalism in the struggle for a socialist America.