The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.65/No.11            March 19, 2001 
 
 
Protest frame-up of dockworkers
(editorial)
 
The fight by the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) to defend five union members facing frame-up charges in Charleston, South Carolina, is an important one for the labor movement and all defenders of democratic rights. Workers and farmers are encouraged by the union to join its campaign to beat back the government's attempt to railroad the dockworkers to prison.

The unionists, who are members of ILA Local 1422, were among hundreds of others participating in a peaceful picket line against the use of a nonunion company on the docks by the Nordana Lines last year when they were attacked by hundreds of cops in riot gear. Even though initial charges of inciting to riot filed against nine union members were thrown out of court due to lack of evidence, the state, in its determination to press its antiunion drive, indicted the five workers on felony charges. The cops' attack was an assault on union rights and the right to peaceful assembly as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The longshoremen's struggle to defend their union against the boss's moves to open the door to nonunion outfits is part of other labor struggles in the Charleston area. And the union is in the middle of fighting the state government over its racist and antiunion policies. Port Authority workers--including crane operators, clerks, and yard crews--have signed cards to join the ILA but are banned from doing so by state law, which the union is fighting to overturn.

The police assault on the dockworkers came three days after nearly 50,000 people marched on Martin Luther King Day in Columbia to demand the government remove the racist Confederate battle flag from atop the Capitol. The mobilization struck a blow not only against the symbol of slavery and emblem of reaction against the social gains of the titanic civil rights battles that buried the system of legalized segregation in South, but against the ongoing drive by the wealthy rulers to assault civil rights. Local 1422 members, overwhelmingly made up of workers who are Black, were among the largest organized contingent in the march. "It's our duty," one union member remarked about the local's participation in the demonstration.

A number of longshore workers link the fight for Black rights with struggles to advance unionization in the South. Their actions highlight the advances within the working class that have undercut the ability of the bosses to use racism in their divide-and-rule tactics. And the dockworkers are reaching out for solidarity internationally and across the United States to defend their union. Labor support for their fight to get the charges dropped will be weighed by the state government and the wealthy rulers in South Carolina in determining how much of a political price they will pay for prosecuting this frame-up case.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home