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World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
PORT ANTIWAR PROTEST: POLICE MIGHT vs. CIVIL RIGHTS
By JACK HEYMAN
June 17, 2003 - When police opened fire on a peaceful anti-war protest
at the Port of Oakland on April 7, many demonstrators and nine longshore
workers were injured.
Police used "less lethal" riot control weapons. The
manufacturer's instructions clearly warn that shooting directly at people,
which police did, can be lethal.
Thirty protesters and a longshore union official were arrested in the
unprovoked police attack. On May 12, anti-war demonstrators successfully
returned to the port to reassert their First Amendment rights to protest.
This time port employers delayed ship arrivals to avoid any conflict and
police did not attack demonstrators.
The Bay Area has a long history of dock protests. At an Oakland Coliseum
rally in 1990, Nelson Mandela credited a San Francisco dock action in 1984
with sparking the U.S. anti-apartheid movement. In 1997, before he was
mayor, Jerry Brown marched in a picket line in support of dockworkers in
Liverpool, England. Today, he hypocritically defends the police shooting
protesters in a picket line. Even police videos refute their justification
for shooting, that the demonstrators threw rocks, bottles and blocked
trucks in the port.
Last year during longshore contract negotiations, the Pacific Maritime
Association (PMA) representing shippers closed all terminal gates, locking
out longshore workers and shutting down all U.S. West Coast ports from
Canada to Mexico for ten days. Longshoremen protested by organizing picket
lines, rallies and marches. After the PMA lockout, President Bush invoked
the Taft-Hartley Act, forcing longshoremen back to work under employers'
conditions. Mayor Brown did not object to the ports being closed then by
maritime employers, nor did he object to Bush imposing what the labor
movement calls the "Slave Labor" Act.
In the post-9/11 world every event is measured in "national
security" parameters. Last June, in an unprecedented act of
government intimidation of unions, Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made phone calls to ILWU President
Spinosa warning that dock actions during longshore contract negotiations
would threaten "national security."
Politicians of both parties are jumping on board President Bush's
"war on terror," lest they be branded unpatriotic. Meanwhile,
draconian legislation like the Homeland Security Act, USA Patriot Act and
Transportation Security Act, which eviscerate civil liberties, fly through
Congress without serious debate. These patriots argue paradoxically that
nowadays democratic rights have to be suspended in order to protect them.
The state of California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC) spied on
protesters and union officials before the police attack. In an Orwellian
twist Mike Van Winkle, a spokesman for CATIC who has since been removed
from that job, explained, "You can almost argue that a protest
(against a war ... against ... international terrorism) is a terrorist
act." Even more chilling, Van Winkle extends terrorism to include any
action that has an "economic impact. Are union picket lines or civil
rights demonstrations to be banned in this war on terror?
National security was the excuse for government spying on former ILWU
President Harry Bridges, the target of an unsuccessful redbaiting campaign
to deport him. Today, spying on Oakland longshore officials whose union
has been outspoken against the war and occupation in Iraq is no less
reprehensible.
Yet, when it comes to probing the awarding of billions of dollars in
reconstruction contracts in Iraq to corporations like Bechtel and
Halliburton, that's taboo. Bush handed Stevedoring Services of America (SSA)
a $4.8 million contract to run the port of Umm Qasr. The Port of Oakland
demonstrators were protesting SSA's war profiteering. Clearly, this was a
war for imperial might not civil rights.
The "Blue Ribbon Committee" set up to probe the latest Oakland
police atrocity will have as little effect in curbing "excessive
police force" as the Civilian Police Review Board did in curtailing
the OPD's racist Riders.
Perhaps, Jerry Brown in his possible run for state attorney general could
host a radio program similar to his former KPFA show "We the
People," this time renamed "We the Police."