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ILWU 10 Defense Committee Formed-Solidarity Resolution
April 11 SAN FRANCISCO LABOR COUNCIL RESOLUTION
DEFEND ILWU LOCAL 10's APRIL 4 SOLIDARITY ACTION
Whereas, the delegates meeting of the Council voted unanimously on March 14 that "in the event that a Council affiliate votes to engage in an industrial action on April 4, the San Francisco Labor Council will call on all its affiliates...to support such action..." and
Whereas, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 and its President Richard Mead are being sued in court by maritime employers of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) for a 24 hour shutdown of the Port of Oakland on April 4 a National Day of Action called by the AFL-CIO and a day for which ILWU International President McEllrath on March 8th called for mobilizing in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin; and
Whereas, each rank and file member of Local 10 made this selfless choice on their own to stand up for public workers in Wisconsin and for all workers in the best tradition of the longshore union, as they have done since the Big Strike of 1934 and the historic San Francisco General Strike which built the foundation for the trade union movement in this city and on the West Coast, and
Whereas, these same maritime employers were unsuccessful in their attempt to use the slave labor Taft-Hartley Act to stop the ILWU from carrying out a Local 10-initiated coastwide shutdown of all ports on May Day 2008 to demand an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a first-ever in U.S. labor history, and
Whereas, Local 10, the heart and soul of the San Francisco labor movement, is now under attack for implementing the principled labor slogan "An Injury to One Is An Injury To All",
Therefore be it resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council, consistent with its March 14th resolution, initiate a broad defense campaign of ILWU Local 10 by setting up a defense committee headed (in close collaboration with) by Local 10, by contacting and mobilizing the Labor Councils and AFL-CIO of the Bay Area, California and nationally and
Be it further resolved, that the first step in this campaign will be to call for a mass mobilization of all Bay Area Labor Councils and the California AFL-CIO to rally in front of PMA headquarters in San Francisco on Monday April 25th to demand that the court suit be dropped and that the vindictive lynch mob procedures against the union in the arbitration be halted immediately, and
Be it finally resolved that ILWU Local 10 be commended for its solidarity action and that we request that the state and national AFL-CIO do likewise.
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