7/6/2009 International Labor Conference On 75th Anniversary of The San Francisco General

7/6/2009 International Labor Conference On 75th Anniversary of The San Francisco General Strike “The Lessons Of The Past For The Struggles Today”

http://www.sfgeneralstrike.org/LaborConfStatement.htm


International Labor Conference On 75th Anniversary of The San Francisco General Strike
“The Lessons Of The Past For The Struggles Today”

Hosted by ILWU Local 10, ILWU Local 34, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Monday July 6, 2009

Seventy-five years ago in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands workers went on a general strike to protest the murder of two striking union workers. Longshore workers had closed the docks to fight for union and workers’ rights. At the same time, a West Coast maritime strike was taking place. The west coast longshore strike was over the right of the union to a union hiring hall that would end the shape up and provide organized collective power to the workers on the docks.

This strike transformed the bay area labor movement with hundreds of thousands of workers joining unions not only in San Francisco but also throughout the Bay Area.

On this historic anniversary, workers not only in the US but throughout the world are under attack through open union busting and the anti-labor corporate policies of deregulation, privatization and outsourcing of all workers jobs. The imperial wars being launched by the US and it's allies throughout the world not only have left millions of workers dead but have also been used as a pretext to attack democratic and labor rights of workers in the US and every country of the world. This repressive legislation also threatens our privacy and will be used as a tool to attack labor as it struggles globally.

Legislation including the TWIC card, ICE raids and new international repressive policies threaten our privacy rights and are already being used as a tool to attack labor as it struggles to defend itself.

The lessons of the San Francisco general strike is that workers have the collective power to defeat the bosses, the police and the government in their struggle if they are properly organized, educated and are prepared to fight. Today with a worldwide depression stalking the world, we need to renew the lessons of those struggles for today and begin to develop a strategy and tactics that can defend working people here and around the world. This is a struggle for power and working people and unions need a plan and strategy to defend our basic rights in order to stand up to this economic and political onslaught. This worldwide depression is a life and death situation for the world working class.

We invite trade unions, transportation workers and labor activists internationally and in the US to join us for this discussion and plan for action, strategy and solidarity to rebuild the world's labor movement.

We ask you to endorse this conference, participate and prepare a written report on the state of your union, pictures and video on the struggle in your country including lessons for taking the struggle forward.

There will also be an educational conference on the 1934 general strike on July 3, 2009 and a Northern California labor march with floats to commemorate this historic strike on Sunday July 5, 2009 in San Francisco and we ask that you bring your banners and emblems to join the march.

2009 International Labor Conference Organizing Committee

http://www.sfgeneralstrike.org

c/o Russ Miyashiro

miyashiro34(at)sbcglobal.net

ILWU Local 34