Enviromentalists to Join ILWU on Picket Line 10/7

Members of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, Earth First!, Rainforest Action Network, Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters, Global Exchange and the Sea Turtle Restoration Project will join locked-out dock workers for a Solidarity Rally at the picket line on Monday 10/7.

Following a press conference at the Port of Oakland at 8 AM, the activists will join the International Longshore union on the picket line to show the world that the dock workers, who have supported many progressive causes, have the support of community activists far and wide.

Directions: Downtown Oakland 12th St. exit off freeway. Go north on 7th St. until the end. (Past Oakland main Post Office, cross Maritime St., to Shoreline Park area. At one point, 7th St. turns right. Watch the signs).

Organizers ask that you bring a sign stating your organization's support for the ILWU, and wear your organization's t-shirt. See below a statement of support being circulated in the environmental community. For more info, call 925-376-7329.

Statement of Support for the ILWU from Organizations and Leaders in the Environmental Movement

The International Longshore and Warehouse union is engaged in a battle of historic proportions with far-reaching implications for us all in this age of corporate globalization. For more than 65 years, the ILWU has not only provided crucial services to the people of the U.S., but the union has been on the cutting edge of progressive labor support for other causes, taking action in support of Chilean democracy, political prisoners in the U.S., and strong stances against apartheid and dictatorial regimes, human rights abuses and the WTO, among other issues of global importance.

We have recently seen the Bush administration exploit the nation's fear of terrorism to suspend civil rights, particularly those of political activists. By the same token, the Bush administration, through the Dept. of Homeland Security, has made statements about possible militarization of the ports, threatening the use of troops as scab labor, effectively stripping the ILWU of its collective bargaining rights.

The ILWU is negotiating with the Pacific Maritime Association, whose allies in this process are corporate members of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition (WCWC). WCWC members include many multinational corporations that currently have environmental and environmental justice campaigns against them, such as WalMart, the Gap, Home Depot, Chiquita and others. Those corporations are lobbying the federal government to intervene. An underlying corporate agenda is revealed in efforts to restrict union power on the docks, and is linked to the current wave of globalization and privatization.

As progressive advocates of environmental values, we see the links between our agendas and the struggles of labor. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the ILWU and fully support their rights to collectively bargain, without government intervention. Further, we urge PMA to bargain fairly and in good faith, and we urge the Bush administration to not intervene in this private sector negotiation process inappropriately. An injury to one is indeed an injury to all. Circulated by the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment.

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