USA: For Labor Black and Brown Defense against Racist Police Terror!

 US capitalism has sustained on racism for its entire history. Today the terminal crisis of capitalism racist oppression is crucial for the survival of the capitalist mode of production. The key to the socialist transformation is the death knell of racism and the working class needs to take the lead in defeating the racist terror.

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Mobilize all of Labor to Defend Longshoremen

Obama/Solis/Government hands off the ILA!

Smash Taft-Hartley strike-breaking through

all-out working class struggle!

ILA/ILWU unite to shut down the ports on all three coasts!

The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has been in negotiations with the USMX (United States Maritime Alliance) bosses for the last several months. No contract agreement has been reached yet, but the ILA leaders have agreed to a contract extension until February 6th, thus averting a strike for the moment. As negotiations drag on, a February 6th strike is a possibility. On the West Coast, the International Longshoremen’s and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Portland is also under attack by the bosses. There has been saber-rattling in both struggles by the bosses and their supporters. More than 100 business owners, along with Florida Gov. Rick Scott have called for Obama to impose Taft-Hartley strike-breaking. On the West Coast, Obama’s Coast Guard has been deployed for the express purpose of escorting any scab ships if it comes down to a strike or lockout, while private security strikebreakers stand in the wings.

Instead of mobilizing support for these struggles, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka had all his energies focused on the fiscal cliff; propping up the Democrats and beating up on the Republicans, and in the process, not even denouncing Obama and Pelosi outright over their proposed chained CPI Social Security cost of living increase calculation (which was eventually withdrawn at least for the time being.) The fiscal cliff doom was a lot of hype to divert and scare workers while lining the pockets of corporations by protected enshrined tax dodges as the ruling class promises to go after past social gains like Social Security and Medicare in the run up to March 1st debt ceiling deadline. One other thing is real though; the working class and the oppressed are being led off a cliff by the Democratic Party sellout union tops that are unwilling to do what is necessary to defend our unions or to defend even the minimal remaining social safety net that is under attack.

The miserable fiscal cliff deal pleases no one except Grover Norquist. Obama January 1st spin was that he carried out his campaign promises to avoid unnecessary cuts to social services. However, the fiscal cliff deal is only temporary, until the automatic spending cuts take effect in March unless a new deal is reached. The State Federation and Central Labor Council layers of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy will all fall into line behind Trumka and the Democrats even as they catch fire from the rank-and-file members who are being left high and dry by this largely one-sided class war against the working class and the oppressed. And now in the direct line of fire are the Longshoremen.

To the misleaders of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations must be added the reformists of the Workers World Party and the Southern Workers Assembly who are distributing an online petition to ask Obama to abstain from imposing strikebreaking Taft-Hartley provisions on the ILA. This petition is couched in the language of disappointed Democrats not that of militant trade unionists who understand where the class line lies. This online petition came our way from Occupy Oakland Labor Solidarity and we can only hope that they have better plans for supporting the Longshore struggle and opposing government strikebreaking.

For their part, the ILA bureaucracy already has plans to conduct a potential strike with one hand tied. Their strike preparations include instructions to handle perishable goods, military cargo, automobiles, non-containerized cargo and mail. This is nonsense. Shut down the ports tight, all the cargo and all the ports!

Both the ILA struggle on the East and Gulf Coasts, and the ILWU on the West Coast are key labor battles by unions that wield enormous power and that have traditions of labor militancy. In the wake of the defeat of labor in Michigan, once a bastion of organized labor, we cannot afford many more defeats. It is time to fight! United ILA/ILWU struggle that shuts down the ports with the backing of much of the rest of organized labor and the oppressed could not only stop the string of working class defeats, but could also be mobilized to fight the attacks on social welfare.

It was the ILWU which hot-cargoed goods from South Africa during the apartheid regime, ILWU locals 10 & 19 supported the immigrant worker led May 1st Great American Boycott where Latino labor coast to coast went into the streets and reminded the American worker what May 1st is about. The ILWU local 10 initiated a political strike against racist police repression and the murder of Oscar Grant in Oakland, CA. It is reasonable to expect and correct to call upon the port communities of the oppressed to support and defend Longshore labor Action. It is correct to see Longshore labor action as a form of your own self defense.

The Communist Workers Group (CWG) encourages workers to keep a close eye on the ILA struggle along with that of the West Coast ILWU. Bring these struggles to your union and community and spread the word! An injury to one is an injury to all! Mobilize all-out support for the Longshoremen on all the coasts!

CWG January 6, 2013

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/01/05/18729502.php

http://www.ilaunion.org/

http://www.ilaunion.org/pdf/StrikePreparations.pdf

reblogged from cwgusa

 

Shut the Ports Down on December 12! Call by Labor Black and Brown

Oakland General Strike  2 November 2011

Labor Black and Brown Unite!
ALL OUT TO DEFEND ILWU LOCAL21
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL

In Longview, WA, the capitalists of the EGT conglomerate are engaged in union-busting against ILWU Local 21. EGT plans to unload their grain on a ship in the Longview port using scab (union-busting) labor. According to the ILWU West Coast Contract this work is supposed to be done by workers represented by ILWU Local 21. Shut the Ports on Dec 12! Stop the scabs on Dec 15!

According to the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, the ILWU is "...facing a frontal attack, threatening the future of our jobs and our unions. What is needed to defeat these employer assaults is a solid union action, shutting down the coast." Join the Caravan to Longview Dec 15th!

What does this mean? Last year on October 23rd, when ILWU local 10 shut down the Bay Area ports they called for "Justice For Oscar Grant" and organized a 3,000 strong "Labor/Community Rally" in Downtown Oakland, in Frank Ogawa Plaza (now re-named "Oscar Grant Plaza"). The ILWU led the working class in Oakland in uniting across race lines against racist police murder and injustice by saying this injustice will cost the bosses! THE POLITICAL STRIKE WAS LAUNCHED FOR RACIAL JUSTICE AND AGAINST POLICE MURDER! The PMA lost a lot of money, and their scheduling was disrupted. Stuck on the ships; No cargo moved! Idle were the ports but not the consciousness of the people. The seeds of Nov 2nd and Dec 12th were watered during the fight for justice for Oscar Grant!

"An Injury to One, is an Injury to All! The ILWU membership puts it’s money and sacrifice where their mouth is. That's one of the reasons the bosses hate the ILWU. They wield for others, the kind of power that the entire working class must use to defend and advance the rights of working people and the most oppressed everywhere. In every corner of the world where workers struggle against imperialism they know the internationalist heart of the ILWU and they call on us to SHUT THE PORTS DOWN! GAZA IS WATCHING, EGYPT IS WATCHING, DURBAN, COCHIBAMBA, FUKISHIMA, BUENOS AIRES, AUCKLAND, HARARE, ACROSS THE PLANET THE MOST OPPRESSED AND EXPLOITED KNOW WHAT WE DO HERE STRIKES A BLOW AT THE HEART OF IMPERIALISM.

Members and supporters of the ILWU are calling for a West-Coast wide port shut down. As the ILWU - led October 23rd, 2010 Bay Area port shut down was in defense of the rights of Black and Brown people, and all working people, this proposed coast-wide port shut down is in defense of ILWU Local 21, the whole ILWU and the entire union movement. They are defending the very existence of unions

For the sake of Black and Brown rights, for the sake of Black and Brown pride, we must not allow the ILWU fight alone. Every union, every worker, every able-bodied Black and Brown person must join the battle to defend the ILWU. If we merely spectate, and allow the bosses to defeat the ILWU, this bodes ill for the poor and working folk. If ILWU looses Longview to the scabs we all loose!

Who can deny the current capitalist goal of smashing unions? Who can deny the capitalists' goal of smashing all resistance to the continued marginalization of Brown and Black people, and community? Who can deny the use of police terror to obtain our submission? We know this is a racist class war to keep the 0.01% in power! The continued rule of he capitalist class and its twin profit parties. is unsustainable.

We say NO! Just as we rose up for "Justice for Oscar Grant!" and stated "We Are All Oscar Grant!" we must now stand up and unite Labor Black and Brown-Shut the Port Down! The ILWU carried the message of the potential power of the union movement. We must join these movements of resistance, uniting the fight of the workers with the fight of the Brown and Black communities.


WE ARE LABOR BLACK AND BROWN

Labor Black and Brown organize and unite in struggle against the capitalist bosses and their representatives. We expose and oppose those who act to prevent the independent political organization and political action of labor Black and Brown people. They act as transmission belts for the bosses’ ideology into our community. In the fight for jobs, for our unions, for our schools, against police brutality, to defend native and aboriginal rights, against the prison industrial complex and with #occupy and the ILWU you will find labor Black and Brown. We say it is time to build the democratic working class/labor Black and Brown organizations, assemblies, and neighborhood and factory action committees!

In these organizations and struggles labor Black and Brown will advance demands, slogans a strategy and tactics which lead our people and our class toward political and economic independence and power!

• We say down with phony police review commissions: Form up labor Black and Brown tribunals to try killer cops! Build a General Strike movement against police brutality!
• We say cops out of our communities, out of our schools, off our campuses! Build labor Black and Brown self defense guards against racist attacks, against la migra, against police brutality; against scabs taking union jobs and to defend the #occupy activists!
• We say the system is the crime! Tear down the prison industrial complex! Free Hugo Pinell, Free Leonard Peltier Free Mumia Abu Jamal! Free all political prisoners!
• We defend our immigrant sisters and brothers. We demand full citizenship rights for immigrants. End corporate sweatshop exploitation! Organize immigrant workers! Defeat ICE!
• We say down with the forced austerity: Jobs for all! 30 hours work for 40 hours pay! Poverty is the crime! Open the books of industry! Provide a sliding scale of wages and prices! We demand billions for public works create millions of ethical, green, humane jobs now! Educate and train all willing workers, provide day care, public laundry and communal kitchens!
• We say health care is a right! Socialize the medical industry under health care workers and community control! End drug profiteering free medical science from corporate control!
• We say today’s labor leaders are not our friends, they do the bosses dirty work demobilizing the membership and trapping us inside the bosses’ political parties. For labor Black and Brown to lead the class collaborationist labor leaders must be replaced by rank and file members dedicated to class independence and united labor Black Brown strike action.
• We stand with the colonized and native people in their struggle to save mother earth from the barbarism of the imperialist rape of the land and destruction of the people and their ancestral traditions. Free Hawaii! Free Puerto Rico! Defend sovereign people’s treaty rights!
• We stand for the defeat of imperialist exploitation across Africa, Asia and Latin America!
• We stand against imperialist war mongering in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya and the saber rattling toward Iran! In wars against the third world and in inter-imperialist wars we call for:

 DEFEAT OF US IMPERIALISM!

JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT-JUSTICE FOR RAHEIM BROWN AND ALL VICTIMS OF POLICE VIOLENCE. FOR GENERAL STRIKES TO JAIL KILLER COPS!

DROP THE CHARGES AND RELEASE ALL ARRESTED OCCUPY ACTIVISTS

HANDS OFF WHISTLEBLOWERS SEAN GILLIS, DORIEN MAXWELL &TOPAZ DUBOIS

Contact Labor Black and Brown laborblackbrown@yahoo.com

Labor Donated                                                                                     December 7 ,2011

FOR BAY AREA WIDE STRIKE ACTION TO ARREST KILLER COPS AND PUT MEHSERLE BEHIND BARS! INITIATE WORKERS’ TRIBUNALS!

NEVER FORGET OSCAR GRANT! NEVER FORGET JERROLD HALL! REMEMBER AMADOU DIALLO AND RODNEY KING! DEFEND THE COMMUNITY!

DEFEAT THE BOSSES’ GANG IN BLUE!

BREAK ILLUSIONS IN THE BOSSES RACIST COURTS!

NO ILLUSIONS IN POLICE REVIEW COMMISSIONS!

Oscar Grant's racist murderer, Johannes Mehserle, is to be released on Monday June 13. As could have been predicted, the racist legal system protected the killer cop from any semblance of "justice". Last November, Judge Robert Perry of L.A. Superior Court sentenced the former BART cop to two years in jail for "involuntary manslaughter", after he shot Oscar execution style, as the young father lay handcuffed face down on a BART platform New Year's Eve 2009. A racist murder was reduced to a mere mistake.

Seeking a whiter venue, the trial was moved out of Oakland. And while the demographics of Los Angeles is 25% Caucasian, 75% of the jury in Mehserle's trial was white. No potential black jurors who had any encounters with police were allowed to serve - while white jurors who had friends in the police department were selected. The jury found that Mehserle should serve additional time for using a gun in the crime (14 years for gun enhancement), but Judge Perry rejected the jury's finding. He gave Mehserle a slap on the wrist with a two-year jail sentence. In the “land of the free”, a black youth charged with a similar crime would be sentenced to jail for life - if not death row. But with "credit for time served", Mehserle will be set free after serving a mere 11 months of a two year sentence.

Even as we head into the 21st century, the United States - with its "progressive" liberal enclaves like the S.F. Bay Area - deepens its global reputation as one of the world's most racist nations. In Oakland we do not forget the unarmed youth Jerrold Hall who was killed by BART cops 18 years ago. The world will never forget the images of Rodney King bludgeoned to within inches of his life by a gang of racist L.A. cops. It will never forget the images of stripped and hooded prisoners tortured with phosphoric acid at Abu Ghraib. And now despite the cell phone videos of the killing of Oscar Grant on the internet, his state-backed racist executioner will walk the streets a free man on June 13. The verdict is in, the bosses courts protect the bosses thugs. FOR JUSTICE THE WORKING CLASS AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES CAN ONLY RELY ON OURSELEVES!

Last October, the longshore workers of the ILWU shut down all the ports of in the Bay Area in opposition to the racist verdict in the Meserle trial. While the demands of that one day action: "Justice for Oscar Grant / Maximum Sentence for Johannes Mehserle" were not achieved, they created the kind of united front action, linking the struggle of oppressed communities, youth and labor that makes the ruling class tremble. When labor/black and brown communities come together and take strike action against the oppression of the state the ruling class control is challenged. That is why today the bosses are coming after the ILWU 10 for their subsequent April 10th political strike. Violent police brutality and racist cop murder will continue to be a feature of everyday life in the U.S., just as U.S. imperialist military interventions abroad will continue until we link our youth and community organizations, our marches, and rebellions to organized labor and launch class war against the exploiting class-the top 0.01% that own it all and control our labor power. Only organized labor actions can challenge the capitalist system, their racist courts and cops. In 1934, the dock workers of San Francisco responded to cop murder of a longshore worker by organizing the San Francisco General Strike, shutting down the entire city and most of the Bay Area. Likewise today, to achieve Justice for Oscar Grant we must demand:

• Organized strike actions against the racist verdict and against the release of Oscar Grant's murderer!
• Set up Multi-Racial workers’ tribunals drawn from the Trade Unions, the African-Americans and Latino communities to try all cases of police brutality!
• Build workers’ self defense guards to protect our black/brown/LGBT and labor communities against the police!
• Break with the Democrats and Republicans and build a fighting workers/Labor Party organizing with the unemployed, the black and brown communities and youth!
• Build a revolutionary workers’ international party based on the 1938 Transitional Program of the 4th International to lead the working class to power! 

Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism