The case stems from the dockworkers' fight to stop union-busting by the Nordana Lines shipping company, which began using a nonunion stevedoring outfit to service its ships in Charleston in late 1999. ILA members had several peaceful pickets, but on Jan. 20, 2000, some 600 police in riot gear mobilized to prevent their protest action. A number of workers were injured in the police attack. Nordana eventually agreed to hire ILA members to work its ships, but state officials have persisted in prosecuting five of the unionists. No trial date has been set so far. In the meantime, the indicted workers are denied the right to be outside their homes at night except for work, union meetings, or by special permission of the courts.

"We're going to march on Columbia again," said Kenneth Riley, president of ILA Local 1422 in Charleston in a May 4 phone interview. Just two days before the police assault on their picket line last year, many of the dockworkers had taken part in a Martin Luther King Day rally to demand the removal of the Confederate flag from atop the South Carolina statehouse. Riley reported that the march in Columbia is being 'built broadly not only in Charleston but among other AFL-CIO unions nationally. The South Atlantic and Gulf Coast regional ILA meeting will take place in Charleston June 8, and participants plan to march in the state capital the next day, he said.

Some of the framed-up workers, along with Riley, have been speaking at events around the country to win support for their fight. Riley also told a gathering in Detroit April 21 that resolutions had been passed by Longshoremen's unions on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts of the United States, as well as several other countries, vowing to shut down ports in their respective areas if the case against the Charleston Five should ever come to trial.

Marchers will gather at Memorial Park (corner of Gadsden and Hampton) in downtown Columbia. The march will begin at 11:00 a.m., and end with a noon rally outside the statehouse. Information is available at www.scpronet.com, or call 888-716-7362.

Naomi Craine is a textile worker and member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. Chuck Guerra, a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 876 in Detroit, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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