Labor Mobilizes in Defense of Immigrants, Against Anti-Terrorist Legislation

Partisan Defense Committee
Press Release

P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013
P.O. Box 77462, San Francisco, CA 94107

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS CONTACT: Kathy Ikegami (510) 839-0852
10 February 2002


Labor Mobilizes in Defense of Immigrants, Against Anti-Terrorist Legislation

FEBRUARY 10--Over 300 workers, immigrants, blacks and youth rallied Saturday in front of Oakland's City Hall against the Maritime Security Act and the USA-Patriot Act, demanding an end to the anti-immigrant witchhunt. The demonstration, which marched past the Federal Building and the offices of the dock bosses, the Pacific Maritime Association, was the first in the country in which organized labor mobilized to demand a stop to the attacks on immigrants. This Black History Month demonstration was addressed by Adwoa Oni of the Labor Black League for Social Defense, who said: "Black rights, immigrant rights go forward hand in hand and our struggles advance the cause of emancipation of the whole working class."

Secretary-Treasurer Clarence Thomas of ILWU Local 10, who spoke on behalf of the many longshoremen who came out in their union jackets and hats, said that the background checks enforced by the Maritime Security Act are a move "to undermine the authority and the power of unions." Thomas added that "Racial profiling has targeted blacks, people of color, and our union is one of the most diverse unions in the country. So we see the background checks as a means of determining who can and cannot work on the waterfront, and that is wrong."

Members of AFSCME Local 444 came with a banner reading: "Down with the Anti-Immigrant Witchhunt! Mobilize Union Power!" Also present with banners were National Parks & Public Employees Local 1141 LIUNA and the SF Day Labor Program, whose speaker, Eduardo Palomo, said, "We call on all workers, nationwide, to come out and protest these laws!" Guillermo Ponce de Leon spoke for the Filipino Workers Association. Students came from around the Bay Area: San Francisco State University, Laney College, Merritt College, and UC Berkeley, as well as several high schools.

A statement of solidarity from Mumia Abu-Jamal, America's foremost death row political prisoner, was read at the rally. Another former Black Panther, Kiilu Nyasha, spoke in defense of the many black militants framed up and jailed for their political views. Brian Manning, speaking for the Marxist Spartacist League, summed up: "This is the first effort to mobilize the power of the working class independently, against 'national unity' here in the belly of the American imperialist beast."



Greetings were sent from around the world, including from the Federation of Metal Workers and Employees (FIOM) in Brescia, Italy, and the National Federation of Undocumented Workers from Paris, France. Striking CTM chemical workers from Michoacán, Mexico endorsed the demonstration. Pedro Wasiejko, a labor leader from Argentina, where there have been mass protests against IMF-imposed austerity, sent greetings to the rally: "The social disciplinarians of today are basically two: unemployment on one side and judicial prosecution of social struggles on the other. The most illustrative case of the latter is that of Emilio Ali, a young man condemned to five and a half years in prison for pleading for food at a supermarket at the head of a line of unemployed people. From Argentina, the Central de los trabajadores Argentinos sends out its solidarity and support to your struggle for civil rights and on the road towards constructing a world of greater solidarity and that is more just."

The mobilization was initiated by the Bay Area Labor Black League for Social Defense and the Partisan Defense Committee under the demands: Anti-Terrorist Laws Target Immigrants, Blacks, Labor--No to the USA-Patriot Act and the Maritime Security Act! Down with the Anti-Immigrant Witchhunt! The demonstration was endorsed by dozens of labor and immigrant groups.



The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which champions cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League.