ILWU leaves AFL-CIO

[blake 3:17]

Longshore Union Quits the AFL-CIO
Tuesday, 03 September 2013 09:54
By Mark Brenner, Labor Notes

In a surprise move, the 40,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union announced its disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO yesterday. The news comes just a week before the federation is set to hold its national convention in Los Angeles, the nation’s biggest port and an ILWU stronghold.
The ILWU, known for its militant traditions and progressive politics, has been drawn into turf wars with other unions in recent years—particularly in the grain export terminals of the Pacific Northwest, where longshore workers have been locked in a high-stakes battle over master contract standards since 2011.

In an August 29 letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, ILWU President Robert McEllrath cited these ongoing jurisdictional battles as part of the union’s decision to disaffiliate. The skirmishes hit close to home: McEllrath comes out of Vancouver, Washington’s Local 4, where members of rival unions are crossing ILWU picket lines, and debate over the disputes was squelched at this summer’s state labor convention.
The letter also cited the federation’s compromised positions on health care and immigration reform. Invoking the union’s radical and independent history, McEllrath noted the ILWU did not join the AFL-CIO until 1988—after being kicked out of the CIO during the McCarthy era for being “too red.”

Lockstep with Obama

“[The AFL-CIO] wants to organize these big conventions, and rally to pat themselves on the back, doing nothing to promote the working-class,” said ILWU Coast Committeeman, Leal Sundet, who supported the union’s decision to disaffiliate.

The ILWU supports a national single-payer health care system, while the AFL-CIO is “in lockstep with Obama,” Sundet said. He criticized the federation for being unwilling to discuss the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act, which discriminates against union Taft-Hartley benefit plans and will impose a so-called “Cadillac tax” on generous benefit plans.
Sundet also chided the federation’s position on immigration reform. The AFL-CIO is backing a bill that he contends will only make things harder for working-class immigrants, because it is “designed to give [only] highly-paid workers a real path to citizenship.”

It’s clear, however, that the overriding factor in the break is fallout from the ILWU’s ongoing struggle to maintain its longstanding contract standards—and jurisdiction—for 3,000 longshore workers who handle grain along the Puget Sound and Columbia River. Sundet is in the middle of the storm, heading up grain negotiations for the union.

Grain Strain

Longshore workers in the region move nearly 30 percent of all U.S. grain exports, including half the nation’s wheat shipments.
After talks broke down in December between the ILWU and the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association, two of the four employers—United Grain and Columbia Grain—imposed their “last, best, and final offer,” in hopes of provoking a strike. Meanwhile the union hammered out a separate deal with TEMCO, a joint venture between global agribusiness companies CHS and Cargill.
In February, United Grain locked out ILWU Local 4 members in Vancouver, Washington. In May, Columbia Grain did likewise with ILWU Local 8 members in Portland, Oregon.
In both cases ILWU members have been rankled by Electrical Workers (IBEW) and other union members crossing their picket lines, escorted in by the company’s private security forces. Adding insult to injury, the IBEW has initiated internal AFL-CIO procedures to contest ILWU jurisdiction over maintenance and repair work in multiple ports in the region.
The lockouts follow on the heels of a pitched battle over 25 jobs in Longview, Washington, in 2011. ILWU members squared off with grain giant EGT after the company announced it would operate its new state-of-the-art terminal with the more compliant Operating Engineers (IUOE) union. After months of picketing and direct action—including occupation of the grain terminal, a blockaded train shipment, and scores of arrests—the ILWU finally reached an agreement.
Despite the militancy, the EGT contract loosened work rules and staffing standards compared to the master grain contract.
The solo agreement with TEMCO mirrored some of these concessions. But the employer holdouts are banking that they can spread more of the concessions EGT got, such as regular 12-hour shifts, bypassing seniority, and greater flexibility to use supervisors for bargaining unit work.

Solidarity Divided

ILWU members see the turf battles with rival unions as an additional, unwelcome hurdle to surmount, in an already difficult employer battle.
Attempts to bridge the divisions using the machinery of the AFL-CIO have sputtered, according to Cager Clabaugh, president of ILWU Local 4. One particularly galling example for Clabaugh, a former state fed vice president, was a move to scuttle discussion of the conflicts at the Washington state AFL-CIO convention in July.

“We’re at the state labor convention for three days, a half-mile from the picket line of my membership where we’ve been locked out for five months, and nobody’s even brought up our lockout, not once,” Clabaugh said. “Our resolution gets shot down, not even considered. We can’t even talk about labor inside the house of labor, and that’s wrong.
“It made me sick watching these big unions play politics instead of figure out a way to support solidarity.” Clabaugh said. “If only as much focus and effort was put on trying to figure out a way to let their members do the right thing, or even educate members on why we don’t cross picket lines, why it’s important.”

For Clabaugh, the state AFL-CIO’s focus on decorum rather than the needs of its members helps explain why many ILWU members are frustrated enough to support disaffiliation.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18560-longshore-union-quits-the-afl-cio

[blake 3:17]

Longshore union pulls out of national AFL-CIO, citing attacks at Northwest grain terminals

The West Coast longshore union is pulling out of the national AFL-CIO, citing "attacks" in which the umbrella organization's members blatantly cross picket lines at Northwest grain terminals.

Robert "Big Bob" McEllrath, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, broke the news in a letter obtained by The Oregonian Friday. In the three-page letter sent Thursday, McEllrath told AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka the ILWU would sever its 25-year affiliation with the federation, cutting formal ties because organization members sabotaged dock workers.

The defection exposes a major schism in organized labor as well as the increasingly embattled status of the dockworkers' union, a financially pressed organization threatened by automation that shrinks its base of almost 60,000 dues-paying members. Northwest conflicts, such as a 2011 challenge by an AFL-CIO affiliate that tried to displace longshoremen at a new grain terminal in Longview, Wash., are central to the historic fallout.

McEllrath sent the letter a day after a federal administrative law judge issued a withering decision directing the San Francisco-based longshore union to stop disrupting Port of Portland operations and to quit seeking work that the judge said belonged to another AFL-CIO affiliate, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. McEllrath didn't mention the decision, but he cited numerous other perceived offenses as well as disenchantment with the AFL-CIO on policy issues ranging from taxes to immigration.

"We will not let other affiliates jeopardize our survival and block our future as the primary waterfront workforce," McEllrath wrote.

The ILWU pullout portends more turmoil on the West Coast waterfront and resulting disruptions in international trade. The bitter Portland standoff tied up freight for months last year and caused international cargo vessels to bypass the city.

National AFL-CIO officers could not be reached late Friday. But Tom Chamberlain, Oregon AFL-CIO president said he felt the ILWU defection was related partly to the Port of Portland dispute -- ostensibly over the equivalent of a couple of jobs, but involving broader turf battles.

Chamberlain called the longshore pullout discouraging. "We'll continue to support our brothers and sisters in the ILWU," he said. "They've been a good affiliate of ours."

As an affiliate since 1988, the ILWU passed on a portion of its dues receipts to the AFL-CIO, a national federation of unions with more than 12 million members.

McEllrath, an elected president who rose from a Vancouver local, found just one positive thing to say to Trumka, thanking him for helping in 2002 longshore contract negotiations. The rest of the letter lambasted the AFL-CIO and its chapters, saying that since 2008, "we have seen a growing surge of attacks from various affiliates."

More
Continuing coverage of the contract negotiations between longshoremen and Northwest grain terminal operators.A "particularly outrageous raid occurred in 2011," McEllrath wrote, "when one affiliate slipped in to fill longshore jobs at the new EGT grain facility in the port of Longview, Wash., and then walked through ILWU picket lines for six months until we were able to secure this critical longshore jurisdiction."
"Your office added insult to injury by issuing a directive to the Oregon State Federation to rescind its support of the ILWU fight at EGT," he wrote, "which threatened to be the first marine terminal on the West Coast to go non-ILWU."

McEllrath cited offenses by other affiliates in Los Angeles, Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle.

"Throughout the Pacific Northwest," he wrote, "we are daily seeing still other affiliates blatantly cross the picket lines of ILWU members who have been locked out for months by the regional grain industry."

In that dispute, terminal owners in Portland and Vancouver have shut out dockworkers, trying to make the ILWU accept contract terms closer to those the union was forced to accept in Longview. Conditions on the picket lines have turned nasty. Washington Agriculture Department officials said this week they would stop inspecting grain at United Grain Corp. in Vancouver if security did not improve.

Longshore union leaders feel particular pressure as they prepare for West Coast labor negotiations with the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents cargo carriers, terminal operators and stevedores.

"We see this situation only getting worse as the ILWU is about to start West Coast longshore negotiations and face the challenge of the ports soon being run by robotics and computer-operated machinery over the next five to 10 years," McEllrath wrote. "The survival of the ILWU and the job security of our members depend on our having these remaining jobs."

The ILWU defection comes at an embarrassing time for the AFL-CIO, as the federation prepares to kick off a national conference Sept. 9 in Los Angeles that occurs every four years. A major theme of the convention is expanding membership and inclusion.

Chamberlain, of the Oregon AFL-CIO, said the ILWU pullout flies in the face of a recent trend in which estranged affiliates have returned to the fold. Trumka, the national president, worked hard to bring back laborers and hotel and food workers numbering in the millions, he said.

"Trumka's got a track record of mending fences and bringing people back," Chamberlain said. "Hopefully he can use some of that talent with the ILWU to find out what the true issues are and bring them back."

-- Richard Read

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/08/longshore_union_pulls_out_of_n.html

[A.J.]

In both cases ILWU members have been rankled by Electrical Workers (IBEW) and other union members crossing their picket lines,escorted in by the company’s private security forces.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/security-guardsi-t182996/index.html

I feel vindicated.

[Popular Front of Judea]

WTF does that have to do with the ILWU pulling out of the AFL-CIO?

Go revel in your "vindication" you classist petite bourgeois liberal.


http://www.revleft.com/vb/security-guardsi-t182996/index.html

I feel vindicated.

[blake 3:17]

I think he's saying that strike breakers are strike breakers. A frigging scab defender's the same as a Nazi (except for for those rare times when crossing the line is the right thing to do eg. hate strikes) --

[Popular Front of Judea]

It would be good to know what was the firm that provided the protection. There are firms that specialize in "labor disputes". You don't use $11 hour security guards to break a picket line -- especially when its an ILWU line.

[#FF0000]

It would be good to know what was the firm that provided the protection. There are firms that specialize in "labor disputes". You don't use $11 hour security guards to break a picket line -- especially when its an ILWU line.

Uhhh they were probably $11/hr security guards from an independent contractor like Securitas. Firms like that are where a lot of security guards are from.

Hey listen I'm not gonna make a big stink about you loving pigs or anything but the security guard thing isn't the only time you were trying really hard to be "understanding" of cops, rent-a or otherwise.

EDIT: Actually now that I think of it, security guards seem to be relatively well paid. Two of my good friends unfortunately work in security and they very nearly got me into it when they told me that they were getting 15-18 an hour -- well what most people in my area make.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Stop with the cop baiting. I do not love cops. I also do not love the casual classism that is rampant on Revleft.

You don't like security guards? Police? Fine. What is your solution to ensuring safety in public places?


Uhhh they were probably $11/hr security guards from an independent contractor like Securitas. Firms like that are where a lot of security guards are from.

Hey listen I'm not gonna make a big stink about you loving pigs or anything but the security guard thing isn't the only time you were trying really hard to be "understanding" of cops, rent-a or otherwise.

EDIT: Actually now that I think of it, security guards seem to be relatively well paid. Two of my good friends unfortunately work in security and they very nearly got me into it when they told me that they were getting 15-18 an hour -- well what most people in my area make.

[#FF0000]

Stop with the cop baiting. I do not love cops. I also do not love the casual classism that is rampant on Revleft.

Nah fuck off with that disingenuous nonsense and don't play prolier than thou with me because you will lose


You don't like security guards? Police? Fine. What is your solution to ensuring safety in public places?Doing away with the conditions which engender crime.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Prolier than thou or not I refuse to be slandered. There is legitimate intellectual difference and then there is character assassination.

"Doing away with the conditions which engender crime". Damn why didn't I think of that. Looking at what passes for deep thought on this forum I am so glad that the revolution is not occurring any time soon.




Nah fuck off with that disingenuous nonsense and don't play prolier than thou with me because you will lose

Doing away with the conditions which engender crime.

[#FF0000]

Prolier than thou or not I refuse to be slandered. There is legitimate intellectual difference and then there is character assassination.

You should really work on your communication skills, because between your weird semi-defense of the PA cop who called a gang of militiamen to shut down a public meeting and your weird semi-defense of security guards as "workers" and not as hired goons for private interests, I'd say that one has to be a little obtuse to not think you're being a little bit mealy-mouthed about the topic.


"Doing away with the conditions which engender crime". Damn why didn't I think of that.

I dunno dude, why didn't you?

What was the point of that question in the first place? What was the point you were trying to make?

[Popular Front of Judea]

1) I made no "semi defense" of the PA town constable. I was just pointing out how breathlessly over hyped the story was. (Has he returned to work? I'd wager he is out of a job.)

2) So security guards working at hospitals, libraries, public housing etc. are all hired goons? Excuse me but your ideological rigidity is showing. Do you have any alternative solution? Besides "Doing away with the conditions which engender crime"?

If being a member of the reality based community makes me "mealy mouthed" so be it.

[#FF0000]

1) I made no "semi defense" of the PA town constable. I was just pointing out how breathlessly over hyped the story was. (Has he returned to work? I'd wager he is out of a job.)

It was certainly overhyped, you're right. As far as I know he's still on suspension and will probably be terminated (good).


2) So security guards working at hospitals, libraries, public housing etc. are all hired goons?

I think it's interesting that your examples here are all public institutions, for the most part, where the guards aren't protecting private property, which is neat, I guess. Thing is, security guards usually work for private firms and will often have different assignments. They'll be at the library one day, and standing at the front desk of a warehouse the next, keeping track of every worker that walks in and making sure the one who came in a minute late gets their pay docked appropriately.

So let me try to summarize my view on this in a way that's perfectly clear:

people whose job is to protect private property and/or maintain the status quo are our enemies in the class struggle.

I would've thought this was almost self-evident.


Excuse me but your ideological rigidity is showing.

I prefer to call it "logical consistency".


Do you have any alternative solution? Besides "Doing away with the conditions which engender crime"?

Why besides that? What's your solution?

[A.J.]

WTF does that have to do with the ILWU pulling out of the AFL-CIO?

Well, if you read the passage I quoted from the OP you might begin to understand what I was going on about.


Go revel in your "vindication" you classist petite bourgeois liberal.

Stop making an embarassment of yourself.

[Popular Front of Judea]

I really should know my place, huh.


Well, if you read the passage I quoted from the OP you might begin to understand what I was going on about.



Stop making an embarassment of yourself.

[adipocere]

and to quit seeking work that the judge said belonged to another AFL-CIO affiliate, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers....

In both cases ILWU members have been rankled by Electrical Workers (IBEW) and other union members crossing their picket lines, escorted in by the company’s private security forces. Adding insult to injury, the IBEW has initiated internal AFL-CIO procedures to contest ILWU jurisdiction over maintenance and repair work in multiple ports in the region.I just wish to make an observation:
It doesn't sound like the IBEW workers broke any strike. They crossed another unions picket to perform their own entirely different work - the scope of which is unclear.
The company obviously already had private security for the lockout - everyone would be 'escorted' past the picket.
I may be wrong, but the

grain export terminals of the Pacific Northwestwould not have a lot of IBEW members working there anyway. A few maybe, and they wouldn't be scabbing - they're electricians.

This is a union turf war - IBEW are not like these fuckers. (http://www.madicorp.com/)

[Decolonize The Left]

^ Interesting point. Doesn't this lend more credence to the IWW?

Also: As to the security guards in this scenario, crossing a picket line is totally unacceptable under all circumstances. The picket line is the revolutionary scenario. It is the barricades. It is the line which is drawn in the sand only it's not in the sand it's on concrete and is held by workers.

[adipocere]

^ Interesting point. Doesn't this lend more credence to the IWW?

Unions should be in solidarity with one another, I think fundamentally they are


“We’re at the state labor convention for three days, a half-mile from the picket line of my membership where we’ve been locked out for five months, and nobody’s even brought up our lockout, not once,” Clabaugh said. “Our resolution gets shot down, not even considered. We can’t even talk about labor inside the house of labor, and that’s wrong.
Obviously this is not healthy. However, the break off might be good, it might be bad. It could be a sign of further union weakening in the US or a sign of some progressive activity.


Also: As to the security guards in this scenario, crossing a picket line is totally unacceptable under all circumstances. The picket line is the revolutionary scenario. It is the barricades. It is the line which is drawn in the sand only it's not in the sand it's on concrete and is held by workers.Yes, I agree with you here - I would be humiliated by a security escort if I were in an a union crossing another unions picket. On the other hand, solidarity goes both ways. Perhaps the ILWU should have shown solidarity with the IBEW over the security guards and prevented the escort. It sounds like the ILWU is fighting on two fronts - but fighting management should always take precedence. Of course, I don't really know the situation - I'm speculating.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

It was certainly overhyped, you're right. As far as I know he's still on suspension and will probably be terminated (good).



I think it's interesting that your examples here are all public institutions, for the most part, where the guards aren't protecting private property, which is neat, I guess. Thing is, security guards usually work for private firms and will often have different assignments. They'll be at the library one day, and standing at the front desk of a warehouse the next, keeping track of every worker that walks in and making sure the one who came in a minute late gets their pay docked appropriately.

So let me try to summarize my view on this in a way that's perfectly clear:

people whose job is to protect private property and/or maintain the status quo are our enemies in the class struggle.

I would've thought this was almost self-evident.



I prefer to call it "logical consistency".



Why besides that? What's your solution?

To a large extent this is true but the number of people who's job it is is to protect private property is huge.Capitalist society has to exert an enormous amount of effort to maintain capitalist property relations. Its not just security guards and cops but the military, everyone who works for a "defense" industry-Boeing, Northrup-Grumman, etc, people working in Internet security-a growing business, most lawyers, insurance companies, many (but not all) teachers, telemarketers, and of course the (something like) the 1.5 million people who are employed by the national security state (that number sounds outrageous, I came across that somewhere recently)

This is not to mention the enormous PR industry-advertising,sales, "news" media and political campaign industries., which is a multi-billion dollar industry in the US.

Obviously most police are class enemies. Police are mixed. I've been helped out by small town police when family members have had health issues.In a revolutionary situation some of these people may cross over tio the working class. Even when they are helpful, the majority police work is oriented towards protecting property relations.

Most police are ex-military.The criminalization of US society and the militarization of the police is quite scary.

Security guards range from Securitas people, who are presumably paid from $15-20 an hour and are recruited from the precariate themselves to viscious prison guards and corporate thugs.

[Glitchcraft]

I just wish to make an observation:
It doesn't sound like the IBEW workers broke any strike. They crossed another unions picket to perform their own entirely different work - the scope of which is unclear.
The company obviously already had private security for the lockout - everyone would be 'escorted' past the picket.
I may be wrong, but the
would not have a lot of IBEW members working there anyway. A few maybe, and they wouldn't be scabbing - they're electricians.

This is a union turf war - IBEW are not like these fuckers. (http://www.madicorp.com/)

Um...what? Crossing a picket line is crossing a picket line. The idea of a strike is to shut down the jobsite not just one aspect of it. I don't care if your just there to clean the toilets cross the picket line and your a strike breaker. Those IBEW should have been there supporting them, instead they should be ashamed. They may not be scabs but they are crossing the picket line which contributes to breaking the strike.

And who escorted them? Bouncers from nightclubs? Nope, it was fucking rent-a-pigs, doing the job police probably didn't have jurisdiction over or the legal prerequisites to do.

[Glitchcraft]

1)

2) So security guards working at hospitals, libraries, public housing etc. are all hired goons?

Yes

[adipocere]

Um...what? Crossing a picket line is crossing a picket line. The idea of a strike is to shut down the jobsite not just one aspect of it. I don't care if your just there to clean the toilets cross the picket line and your a strike breaker. Those IBEW should have been there supporting them, instead they should be ashamed. They may not be scabs but they are crossing the picket line which contributes to breaking the strike.

And who escorted them? Bouncers from nightclubs? Nope, it was fucking rent-a-pigs, doing the job police probably didn't have jurisdiction over or the legal prerequisites to do.

Ideologically I agree, but it's still a turf war....one union was incidentally picketing another union's job site. I hold the AFL-CIO responsible for this. Not the workers.

[Glitchcraft]

Well tne workers themselves should have refused to cross. I understand the turf war situation. And yes the AFL CIO is responsible

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

ACCELERATE THE CONTRADICTIONS!

Seriously though, I hope this is the beginning of yellow labour's disintegration (dis-integration: get it?).

[#FF0000]

To a large extent this is true but the number of people who's job it is is to protect private property is huge.Capitalist society has to exert an enormous amount of effort to maintain capitalist property relations. Its not just security guards and cops but the military, everyone who works for a "defense" industry-Boeing, Northrup-Grumman, etc, people working in Internet security-a growing business, most lawyers, insurance companies, many (but not all) teachers, telemarketers, and of course the (something like) the 1.5 million people who are employed by the national security state (that number sounds outrageous, I came across that somewhere recently)

This is not to mention the enormous PR industry-advertising,sales, "news" media and political campaign industries., which is a multi-billion dollar industry in the US.

None of those occupations require people to use physical force to protect the status quo, to protect property. We know what we're talking about here, so let's not be obtuse.


Obviously most police are class enemies. Police are mixed. I've been helped out by small town police when family members have had health issues.In a revolutionary situation some of these people may cross over tio the working class. Even when they are helpful, the majority police work is oriented towards protecting property relations.

Most police are ex-military.The criminalization of US society and the militarization of the police is quite scary.

Security guards range from Securitas people, who are presumably paid from $15-20 an hour and are recruited from the precariate themselves to viscious prison guards and corporate thugs.

I know what security guards and cops are paid -- and it's irrelevant. So long as someone is acting as a police officer or a security guard, they are hostile to the interests of the working class.

[synthesis]

Looking at what passes for deep thought on this forum I am so glad that the revolution is not occurring any time soon.

Damn, dude. Way to make a case for your own restriction.

Maybe you missed it, but we are the revolutionary left. There is no reason for us to exist unless we are expressing revolutionary theory.

Leave reformism to the reformists.

[Popular Front of Judea]

No argument here. If you want revolutionary theory -- unsullied by any contact with reality -- Revleft is your go to place.


There is no reason for us to exist unless we are expressing revolutionary theory.

[synthesis]

Now you're just aping the anti-revolutionary language of the left-liberal capitalists. "Revolution sounds good in theory, but it's unrealistic." (There's always a moralistic component, as well - that the benefits of revolution aren't worth the cost of revolutionary terror.)

If revolutionary politics are not interesting to you, why engage with them at all? I mean, if we can't be honest about revolutionary politics here, where can we be? Those are hypothetical questions because now we're going completely off-topic, but I'm not trying to preempt your response.

[Popular Front of Judea]

We can't be honest about revolutionary politics here either. I am not the one that was engaging in cop baiting. I was not the one implying other members should be restricted.

FYI: The Los Angeles Port Police are ILWU. Local 65. Reality is inevitably complicated.


If revolutionary politics are not interesting to you, why engage with them at all? I mean, if we can't be honest about revolutionary politics here, where can we be? Those are hypothetical questions because now we're going completely off-topic, but I'm not trying to preempt your response.

[#FF0000]

I am not the one that was engaging in cop baiting.

Asking you to clarify your position re: cops and security guards is not cop-baiting.

Do you think cops and security guards should be considered our friends in the class struggle? Do you think cops and security guards are workers? What is it that we're saying that you take issue with exactly?

[synthesis]

We can't be honest about revolutionary politics here either. I am not the one that was engaging in cop baiting. I was not the one implying other members should be restricted.

You keep telling people here that the stuff they're saying is the reason that class politics are minimized in society. You consistently refuse to explain why this is, and when you do express an opinion on anything that is not also a left-liberal cause, you take a reformist stance at best.

Now, pay close attention here: we have the OI section specifically so that these kinds of discussions don't get dragged down by people like you lecturing us on the inefficacy of revolutionary politics, as though our political positions should be dictated by what other people think about them rather than our principles.

I don't think restriction should be used as a punishment for taking the wrong line on something; it should be used to allow people a place to discuss revolutionary politics without being distracted by people who think that revolutionary politics are a waste of time or morally wrong.

[Popular Front of Judea]

So back to the subject of the ILWU leaving the AFL-CIO. Here's the most recent development. It is certain to be a contentious issue here in Seattle:

As the AFL-CIO prepares for a convention where leaders say the goal is unprecedented solidarity with organizations outside the labor movement, the federation is turning its back on some inside the house of labor. Leaders have ruled that locals of the West Coast Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) cannot seek “solidarity charters” and will be ousted from local and state labor councils. The ILWU international disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO last Friday.

AFL-CIO: No Solidarity Charters for ILWU | Labor Notes (http://www.labornotes.org/2013/09/afl-cio-no-solidarity-charters-ilwu)

[Skyhilist]

You don't like security guards? Police? Fine. What is your solution to ensuring safety in public places?

For every violent crime that the existence of cops prevent, how many do you think they create? They uphold the laws that enforce bourgeois class rule, so really they are perpetuating the conditions that lead to crime and killing far more than they save.

[blake 3:17]

From the article PFoJ linked to. A bit of useful background for people not familiar with ILWU:

Despite having only 60,000 members (about 45,000 in the U.S.), the ILWU has played a huge role in West Coast labor.

Drawing on the principle that “an injury to one is an injury to all,” ILWU longshore and marine workers have used their port power to support the struggles of myriad other unions. In Tacoma, Washington, longshore workers refused to cross picket lines by Earth First! and the IWW in support of striking Steelworkers at Kaiser Aluminum. When Teamster Port of Seattle drivers faced loss of work to non-union drivers in Tacoma, ILWU longshore and warehouse workers in both ports honored Teamster pickets, resulting in return of the work to the union drivers after only one day.

Making use of its strong control of the docks, ILWU members in Seattle a few years back shut down a terminal in response to a picket line from Jobs with Justice, because one container held goods from a struck Teamster warehouse. The offending container was ordered off the dock.

The ILWU has also historically used its power for international solidarity. Before U.S. entry into World War II, longshore refused to load scrap iron for imperial Japan. More recently, ILWU workers have denied labor for goods from apartheid South Africa and the Salvadoran military regime. In 1980, when future South Korean President Kim Dae Jung was imprisoned and in fear for his life, action by the ILWU to raise the specter that South Korean ships would not be unloaded in West Coast ports was credited by Kim with his release.

More recently, dockers have shut West Coast ports to protest the World Trade Organization and the war against Iraq, as well as to celebrate International Workers Day, May 1.

And individual ILWU members play a prominent role in local West Coast labor movements. Two are vice-presidents of the Washington State Labor Council. ILWU members hold top leadership positions in several local labor councils, including the two largest in the state, Seattle and Tacoma.

- See more at: http://www.labornotes.org/2013/09/afl-cio-no-solidarity-charters-ilwu#sthash.rcuVVqIO.dpuf


They have also shut down the ports in solidarity with Mumia Abu Jamal & have taken job actions in support of the people of Gaza.

[Consistent.Surprise]

I'm waiting on a response from an IBEW member to tell me WTF happened.

[blake 3:17]

I'm waiting on a response from an IBEW member to tell me WTF happened.

Please do share, if appropriate.

ILWU have been the real freedom fighters in the American labour movement. Dust ups happen, and their consciousness is uneven -- not like every ILWU member is a revolutionary socialist.

[Popular Front of Judea]

This is a jurisdictional dispute that is going on in my city. Clearly when it comes to port side jobs the ILWU is willing to fight for every last one -- whatever the consequences. If it is near the waterfront they want it.

Hwy. 99 tunnel: Bertha hasn’t budged while labor dispute continues (http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021772499_99tunneldelaysxml.html)

The tunnel machine remains stalled because of a stalemate over which union will remove the excavated dirt.

[blake 3:17]

Bad ass mutha funkerz! Word. They might be socially progressive, but they also just serious industrial unionists.

[blake 3:17]

When I was in very conscious but rough as necessary Auto workers local that's how the president ran it. No fucking around.