On Monday, hundreds of protestors attempted to shut down ports up and down the West Coast, supposedly under the banner of Occupy Wall Street. The protests stretched from Anchorage to San Diego and were effective in shutting down terminals in the ports of Portland, Longview and Oakland, and it is reported hundreds of workers were sent home for the day, many without pay. There were reports of scattered arrests and minor property damage, while protestors claim tear gas and flash grenades were used against them in several cities.
The port protests also brought about a surprise twist in the turbulent on-again off-again romance between the revolution and its Big Labor benefactors – union officials are now accusing Occupy organizers of co-opting labor struggle. As we reported in the last issue of INK, Occupy Wall Street leaders were none too thrilled about SEIU using 99% rhetoric to announce the union’s early endorsement of Obama last month, stirring up those lingering fears that unions would ultimately “co-opt” the movement to drive labor’s agenda. (That is if a certain union mastermind or two hasn’t authored the Occupy phenomenon since early last spring.)
“The ILWU has a long history of democracy. Part of historic democracy is the hard-won right to chart our own course to victory. As the Occupy movement…sweeps the country, there is real danger that forces will attempt to adopt our struggle as their own. Support is one thing…attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another…”
That’s International Longshore and Warehouse Union president Robert McEllarth and you read that right – a union president is expressing alarm because persons outside the labor movement appeared to give a damn about a union fight. McEllarth issued that statement to ILWU members and affiliates on December 6, renouncing the planned port protests and instructing his members to go to work on Monday. Speculation is ILWU officials are hyper-vigilant not to appear connected to any port disruptions after being hit with a $315K court judgment in October. (The union was charged for damages and costs incurred over the summer in the ILWU’s own destructive and violent protests against a new Longview terminal operator that dared to recognize a union other than the ILWU.) But there may be much more to the story.
“I am proud to say that I am in a union where my President is out getting beat up by cops on the railroad tracks in Longview instead of sitting behind some desk like most union bureaucrats.” That’s ILWU Communications Director Craig Mierrelles when asked about the ILWU’s position on the protests defending his union president’s thug honor with what sure does read like a swipe, not at unemployed Poli Sci majors, but the leaders of other unions.
According to most press reports and the Occupy website, Monday’s protests were against, what else, “corporate greed” and a port operator largely owned by Goldman Sachs. What should raise an eyebrow – apparently the intent was also to draw attention to port truck drivers allegedly misclassified as independent contractors and thus being “denied their basic human right” to unionize, a topic near and dear to both the Teamsters and SEIU and far outside the ideological slipstream of the Occupy movement before this week. In fact, the official Occupy website now links to “Coalition for Safe Ports,” a front organization of Change to Win, which coordinated and reported on Monday’s protests.
“Frankly, a lot of members are pretty confused about what’s going on, press is screwed up in ways of reporting stuff – most of these guys just get their news from television,” says Fred Pecker, president of ILWU Local 6 in San Francisco. “There are some members here that are supportive, but I doubt enough to be able to put it up for a vote. I got a local of 5,000 guys here. If these guys really want a port shutdown, they would have to work hard to build support among guys that range from left wingers to some very conservative Republicans.”
Perhaps the cutest quote of the day comes from Emily Loftis in her Salon article on the subject. “Just as the 1 percent now has to listen to the 99 percent, Big Labor has to listen to the rank and file. Dec. 12 marks a step in the evolution of the movement from a collection of improvised tent-villages to a national network of empowered, community-conscious problem-solvers.”
