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Add an EventLongshore Union to Shut Down Port on 3/20
Longshore Union to Shut Down Port
On March 20 to Protest War on Iraq
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
The San Francisco longshore union voted at our last membership meeting to hold a "stop work" meeting on March 20th to protest the war in Iraq. We will demand an end to the war, an end to the occupation and the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops now!
This is not a "strike." We are implementing a provision within our contract that permits us to stop work once a month for a "stop work" meeting. We are trying to organize all ports on the U.S. West Coast to take the same action as Local 10. If they decide to follow our lead, it will send a powerful working class message to the warmongers in Washington that we don't support imperial wars like the one in Iraq.
We used this same tactic successfully in 1999 to shut down West Coast ports to demand freedom for framed black political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Longshoremen in Los Angeles last month used their "stop work" meeting to mobilize support for the striking grocery workers in Southern California.
We hope this action by U.S. longshore workers will help put an end to the needless slaughter in Iraq.
In solidarity,
Jack Heyman,
ILWU Local 10
Moreover, Jack Heyman deserves much support for his activist role inside and outside of the union. Many thanks to him!
That said, I want to criticize one point in Jack's statement, where he says,
We hope this action by U.S. longshore workers will help put an end to the needless slaughter in Iraq. [Emphasis added!]By calling the slaughter "needless", one is implicity reinforcing the notion that there is a legitimate purpose being pursued, or at least claimed, by those behind the slaughter, but that the slaughter is not needed to carry out that purpose, and is therefore a mistake! I can't imagine Jack or anyone else on the left characterizing the slaughter of Jews, Roma, Slavs and others by Hitler and the Nazis simply as "needless". (The word might be used perhaps in the context of analyzing Hitler's aims and how those actions served or didn't serve those aims, but such an analysis is very different from a simple characterization.)
Another example: If a rapist kills his victim or somebody else who might be objecting to the rape, we wouldn't call the killing "needless". We would call it a crime!
Perhaps, when speaking for the union, Jack doesn't feel he can use the word "imperialist" to describe the slaughter taking place in Iraq. Not being close to the consciousness of the majority of the union members, I won't argue with that. But there are a lot of other ways of describing it, including, if Jack doesn't want to get into specifying the class interests behind the war, the simple word "criminal".
I am not making this criticism to put down Jack in any way, as certain sectarians would. Rather, I'm trying to clarify the thinking of people in the movement and innoculate us against the unconscious use of language that reinforces within us and our audience the ideology and world-view of the ruling class.
Further discussion of this issue is welcome!
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