AFSCME 444 Protests Police Attack on ILWU Members and Protesters

Motion passed at AFSCME Local 444 meeting April 10, 2003:

Early Monday morning Oakland police launched a vicious and premeditated attack on anti-war protesters on the Oakland waterfront using weapons like concussion grenades, rubber bullets and wooden slugs. Fifty demonstrators and nine longshoremen, who were simply waiting to start work, were injured. Among the 31 arrested and jailed was Jack Heyman, Business Agent for ILWU Local 10.

About 500 people were attempting to protest the war on Iraq by picketing the terminals of American President Lines and Stevedoring Services of America, both of whom handle war materials. As reported in the Oakland Tribune (4/8/03), officials of the Oakland Police Department, the Port of Oakland, and the two companies met last week on how to prevent protesters from blocking terminal gates. With its resulting bloody assault on antiwar protesters and ILWU members, the government took aim and fired at the stronghold of labor power on the West Coast. Given the ILWU's ability to shut down the ports, it could very well have been an ILWU picket line the cops were attacking. This escalation of police violence was a warning directed at the whole labor movement in the Bay Area, as well as an attack on the very right to protest the U.S. war on Iraq.

AFSCME Local 444 goes on record protesting this attack and demands that all charges be dropped immediately. We stand in solidarity with the antiwar protesters and with our union brothers and sisters. We will post copies of this at work locations and print it in the union newsletter, and we will send it to our sister local AFSCME Local 2019, calling on them to join in protest against this attack.

This motion will be sent to Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, Alameda County DA Thomas Orloff. Copies of this motion will be sent to ILWU Local 10, the Alameda County Central Labor Council, the Contra Costa Central Labor Council, the Oakland Tribune and posted on Indymedia.