WorkWork S.A National Dockers Strike, UAW Pres Candidate, ILWU & Ukraine War, Brazil Elect

WorkWork On KPOO 10-13-22 South Africa National Dockers Strike, UAW Pres Candidate Will Lehman Speaks Out, Stop Laguna Honda Hospital Closure, Brazil Elections & ILWU & Ukraine War

WorkWeek 10-13-22 South Africa National Dockers Strike & UAW Pres Candidate Will Lehman Speaks Out
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww-10-13-22-south-africa-nat-dockers-strike-uaw-pres-candidate-will-lehman

WorkWeek covers the strike of thousands of South African dock workers against the government owned Transnet which runs the ports in South Africa. Not only are they fighting for more wages but against privatization of the ports. As a result of the ANC’s privatization agenda billions have been looted from Transnet and other public services. JV Dube is the president of the Revolutionary Transportation Union of South Africa RTUSA which represents dockers in Durban and Capetown about the issues in the strike. We alo hear from David Hemson who was a union organizer of the dockworker during apartheid and an international labor organizer.

Next Workweek interviews UAW Mack worker who is running for president of the UAW as a socialist. Will Lehman who is a two tier worker is the first socialist to run for president of the union. He talk about his history in the plant and why he go involved politically.

Additional media:

South Africa’s Port workers preparing for National Strike
https://maritime-executive.com/article/south-africa-s-port-services-could-be-paralyzed-by-strike
South Africa SAFTA/COSATU General Strike For Workers & Communities
https://youtu.be/sqg2ubbPZWU

Clover & The Class War In South Africa With GIWUSA President Mametlwe Sebei https://youtu.be/q8I3vjfJG_8


South African Clover Workers Strike & Israeli Billionaires
https://youtu.be/APJGEE2eozY
The Union Busting War Against South African Clover Workers By Israeli Billionaire Family
https://youtu.be/u0BjYZeEmpQ

THE CALL OF 1973: The South Africa Durban Uprising And The Lessons For Working People Today South African Union Struggles, NUMSA, The ANC, Privatization & Business Unionism
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww-8-11-22-south-african-union-struggle-the-anc-privatization-corporatization

Clover cancels Christmas to punish striking workers
https://www.newframe.com/clover-cancels-christmas-to-punish-striking-workers/?fbclid=IwAR1Tv5S-2lkvWqDV5H1gAlKOSi73MnelcLu1iKSSHm6-5odxedI6X921YN4
SA Occupy Israeli Owned Clover to Defeat Factory Closures, Job Losses and Wage Cuts
https://imemc.org/article/south-african-trade-unions-say-no-israeli-takeover-of-clover/

For more information:
https://www.workersinternationalnetwork.net
For Solidarity Statements Send To:
retusaunion [at] telkomsa.net,
dube.jv [at] retusa-union.org
josph.jd [at] gmail.com
WorkWeek
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio
workweeknow [at] gmail.com
#laborradionetwork #LaborRadioPod #1u #UnionStrong


WorkWork 10-13-22 Stop Laguna Honda Hospital Closure, Brazil Elections & ILWU & Ukraine War
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww-10-13-22-stop-laguna-honda-hospital-closure-brazil-election-ilwu-ukraine-war

On WorkWeek we will hear about the continuing struggle to keep Laguna Honda Hospital open.

A press conference was held on October 1 with community and SEIU 1021 San Francisco
chapter leaders.

The recent elections in Brazil have ominous comparisons to the rise of fascism in the United
States. The president Bolsonaro is a close collaborator with Trump including his refusal to take Covid seriously. He ha also attacked the election process and his supporters have been threatening a military coup. Also there is a growing fascist movement in Brazil which has assassinated political leader and supporters of Lula.

We interviewed Fabio Bosco who is a Sao Paulo transit worker and a member of the independent Brazilian trade union federation Conlutas about the elections and social and economic conditions in Brazil.

The growing role of the United States in expanding the war in Ukraine with a cost of over $60 billion is potentially leading to a nuclear war with Russian and China.

While most of the union leadership in the United States have supported sending billions of dollars to the war machine a group of ILWU members and retirees have issued a statement calling for the ILWU to oppose this war.

In the past the ILWU has opposed US war around the world from Vietnam to the Iraq war and in 2008 there was a West Coast shutdown against that war. We interviewed Brian McWilliam who is the past president of the International ILWU.

WorkWeek
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio
workweeknow(at)gmail.com
#laborradionetwork #LaborRadioPod #1u #UnionStrong


Stop the Ukraine War: Refuse to Handle Military Cargo
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/03/stop-the-ukraine-war-refuse-to-handle-military-cargo/

OCTOBER 3, 2022
BY COUNTERPUNCH NEWS SERVICE
ILWU Must Stand in Opposition to the U.S./NATO-Provoked War!

We, members and retirees of the ILWU, are very concerned about the Coast Committee’s public statement of March 3, 2022 on the war in Ukraine. It diverges from the many anti-war positions that our union has taken even when it was unpopular to do so. The ILWU has always criticized NATO’s war moves. Since the end of World War II we’ve opposed U.S. wars and coups in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Serbia (former Yugoslavia), Cuba (Bay of Pigs Invasion), Chile (coup), El Salvador and Nicaragua.

On May Day 2008, ILWU shutdown all West Coast ports to oppose the “imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” (as the Caucus resolution read). We have taken action at the point of production against U.S. wars and the apartheid government in South Africa. We refused to load military cargo to the anti-communist military juntas in Chile and El Salvador. We are proud of that legacy. The International Dockworkers Council (European Section) issued a declaration in February calling for an end to the Ukraine war. So must the ILWU.

We are faced with a class war at home and a war abroad between two capitalist governments. Unions are organizing to fight billionaire capitalists like Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and Oakland A’s owner John Fisher who’s scheming to build a ballpark in the busy port of Oakland. While ILWU is confronting PMA over automation and inflation in contract negotiations, people in Jackson, Mississippi and Flint, Michigan can’t get clean drinking water. Worse still black and brown communities face deadly terror from police and ICE daily. In 2003, police attacked anti-war demonstrators in the port of Oakland chanting “Wars are for profit workers can stop it!”

In 1967, during the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr. called the U.S. “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world”. After that speech ILWU Local 10 invited him to speak at the union meeting where he was awarded “Honorary Member” status in our union. A year after his anti-war speech he was assassinated. The U.S. has been in a state of perpetual warfare since WWII. The Ukraine war, provoked by U.S./NATO aggression, is a dangerous preliminary war jeopardizing a massive nuclear contamination at Zaphorizhzhia, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, and can lead to nuclear war against Russia and to WWIII with China.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Secretary of State James Baker promised not to threaten Russia’s security by moving NATO towards Russia’s border by adding countries of the former Eastern Bloc. That agreement has been broken time and again by the U.S. despite warnings by Russia. We believe there needs to be a position taken on the Ukraine war consistent with ILWU’s history. Dockworkers internationally can stop this bloody war. The reactionary, nationalist governments of Russia and Ukraine won’t.

In 2014, a U.S.-driven Maidan coup in Ukraine overthrew the elected government and burned down the trade union headquarters building in Odessa, killing 48 people. In opposition to the coup two Russian-speaking provinces of Eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, seceded. The democratic right to self-determination from the nationalist Kiev government which banned the Russian language must be recognized for the Eastern and Southern provinces. The neo-fascist Azov Brigade opened fire on the two newly-founded republics of the Donbas region, killing over 15,000 civilians. African immigrants in Ukraine attempting to flee the war were subjected to racial discrimination by the Zelensky government.

Furthermore, his neoliberal capitalist government just passed Law 5371 meaning 70% of Ukraine’s workers cannot have unions negotiate collective bargaining agreements or fight an employer’s firing of workers. This anti-union law is opposed by Ukraine’s Federation of Trade Unions. Zelensky’s martial law prevents workers from protesting anti-labor laws by striking.
The ILWU must call for an end to the war. Most importantly we must appeal for port actions to the International Dockworkers Council (IDC) and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) to refuse to handle military cargo by dockworkers around the world. They both opposed the Zionist massacre of Palestinians last year. They can call for an end to the Ukraine war now. International workers actions refusing to handle military cargo can stop it.

Brian McWilliams (#13303 past International President, ILWU) Larry Wright (#8534 ret. Local 10 & 91), Clarence Thomas (#8718 ret. Local 10 ), Dan Coffman (#92556 past President of Longview, WA Local 21) Jack Heyman (#8780 ret. Local 10 and IBU), David Newton (#101386 Local 10), Michael Vawter (#8145 ret. Local 10), Stephen Barlow (#8301 Local 10 and 34), Leith Jasinowski-Kahl (#57956 Local 19), James Curtis (#9639 ret. Local 10), Jack Mulcahy (#82013 ret. Local 8), Marcus Holder (#101355 ret. Local 10), Keith Shanklin (#9146 past President of Local 34), Michael O’Sullivan (#8985 ret. Local 10), Russ Miyashiro (#13474 Local 34), Aaron Wright (#8862 Local 10)