Hi,
As the port blockade seems to be getting off to a good start I want to share a piece I wrote to counter the propaganda about the problems with the blockade hurting workers.
At age 73 I’m able to appreciate the action to support unions being undertaken by Occupy Oakland and so many other Occupy groups up and down the west coast and beyond.
Before I was born in Barre, Vermont, the granite center of the world, workers, including my grandfather, were dying of silicosis at early ages, caused by granite dust in the unprotected shops where the world’s most admired cemetery monuments were chiseled.
As usual those with the money, the manufacturers, were the last to act on behalf of the workers’ health and only then by the force of laws supporting unions. The union movement wasn’t in place yet and the police followed the behest of the bosses beating my uncles and his fellow workers in the streets as they demonstrated for the right to unionize.
Now long after my grandfather’s time the union movement has been brought to its knees again by union busters like EGT (Export Grain Terminal, a part of the 1% billion dollar export company, Bunge Ltd. EGT has been trying to bust unions like the ILWU here on the west coast. The Taft-Hartley law needs to be rescinded. It was called the “slave labor law” at the time and was vetoed by Pres. Truman.
Regaining the rights of workers to unionize is the purpose of today’s community blockade. The ILWU has to abide by its contracts unlike the 1% banksters/corporatistas so, duh, they’re not going to make things worse for themselves. But there is a contract clause that also gives us 99%ers a way to affect the 1%. If an arbitrator deems that the workers are in danger because of the blockade, the workers can be sent home with pay. Those workers not unionized, even though they are forced to be scabs by the economic system, will be hired tomorrow and get their pay also.
Don’t believe the 1% propaganda trying to make us feel sorry for the workers!
Sincerely, Tom Luce, Berkeley
Comments are closed.