ILWU Local 10 Backs BART Workers Solidarity Rally August 1

BAY AREA LABOR SOLIDARITY RALLY TO DEFEAT EMPLOYER ATTACKS ON UNIONS


WHEREAS, the ILWU is facing attacks from maritime employers on our medical benefits, our mechanic jobs at APL and the proposed closure of the Matson terminal to build a sports stadium at Jack London Square and most importantly by United Grain and Columbia Grain in the Northwest locking out longshoremen and using scabs to break our union, and

WHEREAS, these vicious employer attacks are a lead up to the 2014 longshore negotiations and we need to prepare for that struggle NOW by beating back these attacks, and

WHEREAS, other transport unions in the Bay Area like the BART workers are also under attack by their employers under the guise of fighting austerity, and

WHEREAS, the Port Commission has allowed Oakland airport fast food companies to fire and victimize workers trying to organize a union, and

WHEREAS, the Oakland Port Commission insulted ILWU Local 10 by calling an emergency meeting for the SSA-Port deal on Bloody Thursday when all West Coast ports are closed to commemorate the police killing of two workers during the Big Strike of 1934, and

WHEREAS, today's attacks on the ILWU, on BART workers, and indeed on all of labor are part of the austerity attacks on all working people, since the bosses and the state are not only demanding cuts to jobs, wages, and medical and pension benefits, they're trying to take away everything that workers have won through generations of struggle, forcing millions of home foreclosures, cuts to essential services, downsizing of public education, looting the public treasury to "bail out" Wall Street, and destroying the environment, and

WHEREAS, these attacks are enforced by the kind of state surveillance and police repression used against longshore workers on picket lines in the Northwest grain conflict, in the 2003 Oakland port anti-war demonstrations and in the street protests today against the unjust, racist verdict in the Trayvon Martin case, a verdict that effectively declares open season on young black men,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT Local 10 supports ATU Local 1555's call for a labor solidarity rally on Thursday August 1 at Oakland City Hall across the street from PMA. This time BART workers will not stand alone. We will march under the ILWU banner "An injury to one is an injury to all" to BART headquarters and then to the Oakland Port Commission, protesting these anti-worker attacks,

FURTHERMORE, we will join with the BART workers unions ATU Local 1555, SEIU Local 1021, AFSCME Local 3993 and ATU Local 192 seek the support of all transport unions and those affected by austerity cuts as well as the Alameda, San Francisco and South Bay Labor Councils in a show of solidarity in the BART workers fight for a decent contract. A victory for the BART workers is a victory for all of labor!