I received an email today with this dispatch from the ILWU:ILWU Dockers to stop work on May *A letter to John Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO calls for solidarity.
*Day in West Coast ports, to express their opposition to the war in Iraq *
* *
*In a resolution adopted by the International Longshore & Warehouse
Union at its annual Pacific Coast Longshore Caucus, Jan.28-Feb.8, 2008,
an overwhelming majority of delegates called on longshore workers to
stop work during the day shift on May 1, 2008, to express their
opposition to the war in Iraq. The union urged other unions
to participate in similar events on May 1 to bring the Iraq war to an
end and bring the troops home safely.*
* *
*The Longshore Caucus was meeting in San Francisco to prepare for
bargaining a new contract for ILWU members in ports up and down the West
Coast. The current contract expires on July 1, 2008.*
Labor politics have been in an interesting place these past few years, but the ILWU, or the dockworker's union as they're colloquially called, has successfully flexed their muscles a few times.
General strikes have a rocky history in the US but they had been effective in times before WWII. They are a more popular and more recently effective strategy in the EU, and in other parts of the world.
A general strike, successfully organized, before the presidential election, would be like throwing gasoline on an campaign season already working to flashpoint in the primaries.
Should this develop further, it will be historic. If it doesn't build, then that's a historic footnote of itself.
Is such an action more effective than a march on Washington? Can organized labor organize a work stoppage with reach and impact, in this day and age? Will the response be positive from a public tired of the war? Will the president pull a Reaganesque move and punish the unions?
(hat tip to Paul Maresh in PDX)
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Shava Nerad, News and Opinion Correspondent:
Shava's column, Iconoclasm, published irregularly and frequently to Gather Essentials: News, is an examination of the provocative ideas emerging in media and world culture behind the news. Her Iconoclasm columns are now listed as a mainstream news source in Google News.
Shava Nerad has been working on the Internet for over twenty-five years, at the boundaries of Internet and social issues. She is CEO of Indigenis, a consulting group working at the intersection of virtual worlds, social networking, and gaming communities, and recently left her position as development director of The Tor Project to work on a book tentatively titled Rules of Engagement -- healthy risk taking as a path to improving life, work, and society.
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