Reading about Independent truckers parking their rigs or slowing them to 20 mph, but not having union clout or a massive enough movement to really make a dent. Truckers say they're not benefiting from the rising costs of food and clothes that is blamed on diesel prices. At the same time, the oilmen were meeting with lawmakers & being grilled about their windfall profits. Looking at the photographs, I noticed fairly recent truck strikes in US, Canada, Italy and India which were larger and more organized. They all face problems, but labor has gradually taken a hit in the US. It's really hard for the Independents to take an action when they don't have backing from the larger trucking companies.
Longshoremen Vote To Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1
In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East.
This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly important that this mobilization of labor's power is to take place on May Day, the international workers day, which is not honored in the U.S. Moreover, the resolution voted by the ILWU delegates opposes not only the hugely unpopular war in Iraq, but also the war and occupation of Afghanistan (which Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all want to expand). The motion to shut down the ports also demands the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the entire region, including the oil sheikdoms of the strategically important Persian/Arab Gulf.
No doubt the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) bosses will try to get the courts to rule the stop-work action illegal. And the U.S. government could try to ban it on the grounds of "national security," just as Bush & Co. slapped a Taft-Hartley injunction on the docks during contract negotiations in the fall of 2002, saying that any work stoppage was a threat to the "war effort," and threatened to occupy the ports with troops!
The ILWU struck in 1948 in defiance of the "slave labor" Taft-Hartley Act to defend its union hiring hall against the bosses and government screaming about "reds" in the union leadership. In 1953, at the height of McCarthyite witch-hunting, the ILWU called a four-day general strike in Hawaii of sugar, pineapple and dock workers over the jailing of seven union members for being communists. During the Vietnam War, socialist historian Isaac Deutscher said that he would trade all the peace marches for a single dock strike.
In January 2003 train drivers in Scotland refused to move a freight train carrying munitions to a NATO military base. The next month, Italian railroad unionists and antiwar activists blocked NATO war trains by occupying the rails. In the United States, ILWU dock workers were a target of "anti-terrorist" government repression, as police fired supposedly "less than lethal" munitions point blank at an antiwar protest on the Oakland, California docks, injuring six longshore workers and arresting 25 people (who eventually won their legal case against the police). (story thanks to Alan Castle, Seattle)
Direct Action Needed
Debbie Shank used to stock shelves at night for Wal-Mart. Now she owes Wal-Mart almost $500,000.
The 52 year-old Missouri Wal-Mart employee was left “brain damaged, disabled and penniless” from a car accident seven years ago. But when the Shank family received a settlement from the driver at fault, Wal-Mart demanded reimbursement for every cent they had paid for Deborah’s medical bills – plus interest and legal fees.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Debbie Shank’s case, leaving her family no choice but to pay Wal-Mart $470,000. Now her family doesn’t know how they’re going to be able to afford Debbie’s nursing home bills.
The Shanks aren’t gold-diggers. In fact, just six days after the U.S. District Court sided with Wal-Mart over the Shank family, Debbie’s 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed while serving in Iraq. They’re an honest, hard-working family living most people’s worst nightmare – and Wal-Mart is only making it worse.
Join this group and sign our petition to tell Wal-Mart: Deborah Shank had paid enough.
Action.Walmartwatch.com
Posted by: Not My President | April 01, 2008 at 10:23 PM
Acc DailyKos, in large part thanks to Olbermann, WalMart has to back down.
Posted by: Not My President | April 02, 2008 at 08:31 AM