Posted on 04/30/2008 2:58:19 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Bay Area longshore workers are planning to gather Thursday to protest the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially thwarting activity at the region's ports, according to members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Brandon Taylor, an operations manager for GSC Logistics, a warehousing, distribution and transportation company at the Port of Oakland, said today that the company had known about the protests for a few weeks and is planning to get all containers out of the port today and Wednesday in order to prevent halting production.
He said the good news is that it is a slow time of year and volumes are not very large. However plans for the protest have been modified since the Longshore Caucus, the highest decision-making body for union, voted in February overwhelmingly for a resolution supporting the May 1 protest, said Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the union.
The union planned to hold a "stop-work day'' to halt commerce at all 29 West Coast ports to protest and call an end to the war. But union's leadership earlier this month withdrew its request to have its employer, the Pacific Maritime Association, provide the day off and Thursday's protest efforts will now be voluntary and done on an individual basis, Merrilees said.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union's contract with the Pacific Maritime Association permits work at ports to stop for one shift a month for membership meetings that are held on specific dates. The union had requested to change the date for the protest, however its employer did not permit the change, according to the union.
Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Association, said the association did not agree because of the disruption it would cause during a peak period of operations.
One of many protests planned for Thursday along the West Coast will be in San Francisco, where workers are scheduled to meet at the San Francisco union office at 10 a.m. before marching along Embarcadero to Justin Herman Plaza for a noon rally. Scheduled speakers include Danny Glover, Cindy Sheehan and Daniel Ellsberg.
Clarence Thomas, an executive board member of San Francisco-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 said, "This is an historic event, the first time in recent memory American workers have stopped work to stop a war.''
Getzug said the union notified the Pacific Maritime Association on April 1 that it dropped it's demand for a May 1 stop-work meeting and that "it's our understanding that May 1, for all intents and purposes will be a regular work day.''
"We're hopeful that the day will come and go without any disruption,'' he said.
Like the good little lap-dog DemoRats they are. They all need a couple of years in Venezuela to convert them back into Americans.
These are the same people election after election vote for the commie Pete Stark. Yes they are idiots.
Liberals, just working to recreate the 60’s riots.
next they’ll strike to end poverty, menopause, deer hunters, pancakes, drilling for oil, and of course, co2 levels.
Maybe the military should protest the Union Workers at the port by using different shipping ports of other modes of transport.
These bastard unions have forced me to consider buying a foreign car/motorcycle...actually I already have a british bike, but I’m gonna rethink my three American cars...
And costing themselves money.
Nothing says boycott a city better than its own residents doing the same!
And there are few cities worth boycotting more than the Gay Bay.
They did this during WWII at the North American plant to hault production of P-51 Apaches for the defence of Britan against the socialist hoards.
Always on the wrong side of history.
Communist unions should be outlawed in the USA. By the way, all unions are communist. They have no part in a free society.
The Longshoremen in the Bay Area were run by many years by one Harry Bridges (fortunately now dead), who was a loyal supporter of the communicst and who called FDR and Churchill “warmongers” who opposed the Stalin pact iwth Hitler. y and a Moscow agent. He had much of the idiot press reporting his claim that he was a “Republican”. Most of the members of this union make well over $100K a year. Believe it or not, the nuts in San Francisco have dedicated a plaza to Harry Bridges.
36) Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
42) Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a "united force" to solve economic, political, or social problems.
What a crying shame, and yes I believe it.
In CA, many of the Hollywood writers found themselves jobless after the strike ended. Their projects have been cancelled. In HI, pilots of the bankrupt Aloha Airline threatened to go on strike because the Aloha Cargo (a different company under a same holding which at the time was still operating) doesn’t allow them to replace the existing Cargo pilots. The pilots argue that based on union seniority, they should be allowed to replace the more junior Cargo pilots.
There is a body of opinion here in Texas that the Trans-Texas Corridor and other overland NAFTA routes are actually aimed at bypassing the obstructionist and disloyal unions who control many American ports, allowing most maritime commerce to go through Mexican ports.
This story certainly lends credence to this view.
Unions and union workers. There’s nothing they can’t F*#@ up!
Freedom???
FYI: The Million Worker Movement is very closely linked to the Workers World Party. Here's a link to an article (from their website) announcing this communist May Day event:
http://www.workers.org/2007/us/ilwu-0412/
Note: For any folks here who do not know who the Workers World Party is, here's an example of where they are coming from politically:
Also, the so-called "anti-war" (actually pro-communist) group International A.N.S.W.E.R. was officially' founded on September 14, 2001, by leaders of the Workers World Party. When ANSWER was later publicly outed as a communist front, WWP started up a new "peace" group called Troops Out Now. Democrat chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, actually gives speeches at their rallies and the NY media looks the other way. Certainly no surprise there.
Taft-Hartley time.
I know the coal miners went on strike during the war. Did the longshoremen as well?
I don't see a problem with that though. I would support TTC if the land were to be bought from willing sellers instead of taken under eminent domain.
Harry Bridges. During WW2, Bridges and his thugs did everything possible to oppose Lend-Lease and materially assist Hitler until the Soviet Union was attacked. They changed 180 degrees overnight, signing a "no-strike" pledge and agreeing to a work speedup (something Bridges had opposed for years). They went so far as to loan thugs and strike-breakers to help genuinely abusive bosses break strikes in other industries.
I have always believed that the allies would have lost WW2 if Hitler had not attacked the Soviet Union. The Soviet hordes tied down a huge proportion of Nazi land forces, and Stalin ordered his enormous fifth column in this country to work for, rather than against, the war effort.
Why is this such an historic event, Clarence? A bunch of "workers" getting together to celebrate May Day under the guise of protesting the war. Reality is, unions are run by communists (and I'm serious) and this fits in nicely with their plan.
Unions are the biggest waste of time, money and manpower on the face of the earth.
As a proud union electrician I declare....these pukes should go to jail if they disrupt one single offload.
If anyone asked me to celebrate commie day or not work...I’d tell em to FO.
Such is my right.
Absolutely. Music to the ears of the Bay Area Ports' (Ports of Oakland and San Francisco) competition (Longbeach; LA; the Puget Sound Ports of Tacoma and Seattle). Ports are rated on efficiency (turnover rates)--NOT on work slowdowns. Businessmen choose the most efficient ports--NOT the ones with the biggest labor problems. Fortunately, the Bay Area Ports aren't very big. Oakland ranks 45th. San Francisco ranks 112th--both in terms of annual tonnage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._ports
More like traitors if you ask me.
“Always on the wrong side of history.”
Yep.
Democrats: Supporting America’s enemies since 1824.
“Unions are the biggest waste of time, money and manpower on the face of the earth.”
I’ve been saying that for a long time now, and in one of the threads about the Northrop-Grumman tanker deal I was chastized for having that view, and was labeled as being a “globalist”.
A lot of the reasons why American companies move operations overseas is because of these unions. Unions do absolutely nothing but inflate the costs of goods and services.
From what I read it was the longshoremen in SF that refused to load ammo ships destined for the fighting in the Pacific ....
I’ve thought since high school they were a waste.
Funny story - my girlfriend’s Senior Prom is at a ballroom of some long forgotten hotel just inside the district line in Washington.
The ballroom next door was hosting a union convention. Some big union like AFL-CIO but I’m not sure. Anyhow, ended up getting into an hours long debate with these union guys in the bar. At the end they were ready to kick my ass and my girlfriend is trying to drag me away. She wasn’t too happy but fortunately forgave me later on. :)
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