I've been organizing with a regional group called Occupy 805 here in California's beautiful Central Coast in conjunction with our local Occupy SB. Most of the local General Assemblies in our area have come out in support of Occupy Oakland's call to shut down West Coast Ports on December the 12th.
However, with all that is going on regarding the Leadership of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union urging members to not join the ranks of the movement, I felt that it is necessary to talk a little about why blockading or disrupting port activities not only is a time-honored tradition in our country, but also examples of the questionable corporate practices going on at our own local port.
Below the squiggle, (and into American tradition) we go!
Like many events in history that didn't have to do with dramatic battlefield charges, massive natural disasters, or horrendous causality-inducing attacks, port closures and the broader topic of civil disobedience in our country is often forgotten. There have been an incredible number of strikes, sit-ins, occupation protests, port closures, town takeovers, factory shuttering, and the list goes on, and on, and on.
The very first strike recorded in North America actually happened way back in 1619 in Jamestown where younger groups of Polish workers (who were brought to the colony specifically to make glassware, pitch, and tar) were not allowed to vote with the rest of the colony. The workers weren't feeling represented by their government, (sounds so familiar...) so they went on strike, and their right to vote along with the rest of the men in the colony, was recognized.
Let's fast forward to probably the most historically significant case of direct civil disobedient port action that our country has ever experianced called, The Boston Tea Party. Actually, even its name is a misnomer in some ways since it could have just as easily been called a coordinated civilian port blockade on the East Coast. The action itself involved East India Company ships being denied port completely in New York and Philadelphia, with Charleston citizens allowing the ships to dock only to seize the goods outright, later selling the same goods to finance the American Revolution.
The East India Company had been allowed a monopolization of the tea trade to the colonies. To placate the colonists Parliament lowered the overall duty on tea, making it cheaper as a whole, however, colonists realized that to pay that tax at all would be to legitimize Parliment's authority to tax them. As we all know, no taxation without representation was a rallying cry, and one could even say it was a demand...
At any rate, like New York, Philly, and Charleston, when the East India Trading ships headed into Boston harbor the people were waiting, (roughly 7,000 in Boston). Let's use the way-back machine to read a first-hand account from George Robert Twelves Hewes who was, up until the beginnings of the American Revolution, a fairly average working-class shoemaker born and raised in the South End of Boston.
"It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin's wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination."
"When we arrived at the wharf, there were three of our number who assumed an authority to direct our operations, to which we readily submitted. They divided us into three parties, for the purpose of boarding the three ships which contained the tea at the same time. The name of him who commanded the division to which I was assigned was Leonard Pitt. The names of the other commanders I never knew. We were immediately ordered by the respective commanders to board all the ships at the same time, which we promptly obeyed. The commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as we were on board the ship, appointed me boatswain, and ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles. I made the demand accordingly, and the captain promptly replied, and delivered the articles; but requested me at the same time to do no damage to the ship or rigging. We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water."
I have to step in on George for a second to mention how much people, and especially our current powers-that-be, would freak out at anything even approaching this level of direct action. We would be metaphorically tar and feathered, probably after getting tazed and potentially shot. Okay, please continue, George, you amazing patriot, you.
"In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.
...The next morning, after we had cleared the ships of the tea, it was discovered that very considerable quantities of it were floating upon the surface of the water; and to prevent the possibility of any of its being saved for use, a number of small boats were manned by sailors and citizens, who rowed them into those parts of the harbor wherever the tea was visible, and by beating it with oars and paddles so thoroughly drenched it as to render its entire destruction inevitable."
So, these Americans, without the protection of the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights, took it upon themselves to disrupt commerce that they found to be unjust and a detriment to the American people. How brave was that!?
I could spend all day and night happily typing about that one event in our history, but the broader picture is that the Boston Tea Party is but one beautiful square in the vast quilt of peoples' actions that have made this country what we are today. Just referring to a list of strikes in our history shows that there is an incredible amount of variety when it comes to the reasons why Americans have had strikes. The times and places these events occurred in were different in relation to specifics. But what is more incredible to me are the similarities of why we've historically protested, why we strike, and why, in times of economic or civil hardship, we find each other and basically just do things together.
Whether it was Lowell women striking in 1834 and 1836 causing a run on two banks, Coxey's Army marching in protest to Washington DC to, "...protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893 and to lobby for the government to create jobs which would involve building roads and other public works improvements..." or the more extreme "Dynamite Express" miner actions in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in 1899, (where the miners literally used 3,000 pounds of explosives to blow up a mill), the basic reason we as people have gotten into the proverbial streets throughout history is injustice, unfairness, and truly to redress our grievances. The 20th century in America was stuffed with further examples of labor movements that spawned everything from the 40 hour work week to a permanent end to child labor, (much to Newt's chagrin, apparently).
Today we also live in a landscape of vast injustices that are being perpetrated on people across our planet, which mostly benefit the very few who were lucky enough to end up running giant corporations or were born with silver spoons in their mouths. Since most of us (including some of the lower-earning spectrum of the 1%) do not now, and never will, fall into either of those categories, it makes sense that we are coming out to make our voices heard.
To that end I'd like to talk a bit about our local action. Regionally we are planning on taking action at Port Hueneme. This is very controversial with the ILWU not coming out in support and many locals concerned about going to work on Monday. I understand why the ILWU isn't supporting considering that the momentum for this action got ahead of some of the outreach that should probably have taken place leading up to it, however, there are several reasons that action on this port makes sense:
~ Port Hueneme serves corporations that hurt working men and women of America, and the world at large. This primarily includes Del Monte Fresh Produce NA, Inc., who does have a shipment expected on the 12th, and has so much wrong with it its hard to know where to start. I'll let the labor groups that know this company best tell us about them: First off, on the ILWU Local #46 website they are calling on a boycott of Del Monte products. Secondly, in 2008 the International Labor Rights Forum released a study of Del Monte entitled, "The Sour Taste of Pineapple". The report highlights, among other abuses, Del Monte using illegal pesticides in Hawaii, horrible conditions on their plantations, and were caught shipping 10 tons of toxic endosulfan with 800 passengers on a ferry that sank in violation of law in the Philippines. The US Agency for Toxics and Disease Registry believes that “endosulfan may potentially cause reproductive toxicity in humans.” I could go on and on regarding the environment or the poisoning of our food supply, but when it comes to labor conditions I found this quote from Cath Murphy, a delegate from Britain’s General Union. It chills me to the bone as Cath talks about the day in the life of a pineapple worker:
"I couldn’t stop thinking about the faces of these young men, still only in their teens and twenties, but with a dullness and hollowness in their eyes. They looked totally exhausted. The plantations are so massive that they have to wake up at about 3 am to walk to work for a 5 or 6am start. They get paid for an eight hour day, but they usually have to work for more than 11 or 12 hours to meet their targets…Most do not arrive back until at least 8 in the evening. They only get a 30 minute break each day and there is no protection from the rain or sun… There is an odd tin hut that passes for a toilet, but it is a very long walk to get one. The one we saw had no water, no soap, no toilet paper, no washbasin"
Finally, the Longshoremen’s (ILA) Local 1291 in Philly took action, due to the Del Monte company’s decision to go non-union on October 1, 2010 by literally
dumping Del Monte pineapples into the Delaware river.
~ Del Monte Fresh Produce NA, Inc. was purchased by notorious buyout barons, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. They like to call themselves a "global investment firm" and, technically they are, in the same vein that a significant-sized Earth-bound meteor would be "a global economic stimulation". The type of investment that groups like KKR actually do remind me of the old saying, "With friends like these who needs enemies?". The very nature of this type of mass leveraged takeover investment is flawed, mostly because the finance companies like KKR who drive these moves don't actually have a dog in the show, so to speak. That is because the loans for these enormous buyouts most often come from outside investor monies, KKR risks little besides pride and time spent, when they commit to these deals. Most often the initial investments are paid back by selling company assets, outsourcing or significantly cheapening labor practices, eventually selling (and generally wrecking) the companies they took over, and even short-selling stock to essentially bet against the very companies they are purchasing. There really is very little of worth that I can find from these transactions, (unless you are the 0.001% making a killing off of these deals and then it apparently is supremely awesome to the nth degree and you get a "Masters of the Universe" gold-plated t-shirt). If you'd like to know more about these transactions just ask Mitt Romney, as this is how he made his money off-shoring jobs with Bain Capital in the '90s.
~ Seabord Produce Distributors, which serves the Port and is affiliated with Channel Islands Logistics of Port Hueneme fired 10 truckers in August for trying to organize with the Teamsters.
~ A subsidiary of Chiquita Brands, International, (a major customer of Port Hueneme), admitted to paying off narco-terrorist groups in Columbia who were responsible for the deaths of over 100 civilians. Chiquita's despicable labor record is very lengthy, with this piece on the topic from Democracy Now from back in 1997.
~ The Port of Hueneme is the only deep water port between the Port of San Francisco and the Port of Los Angeles.
I am sad to report that a meeting yesterday night between some of our organizers, (which I inadvertently missed, thank you very much 101 Southbound rush hour traffic) the City Administrator, Mayor, and Police Chief of Port Hueneme did not seem to go all well as it could have, with the Police Chief making veiled threats, debating protest philosophy, and even reading antagonistic posts from Occupy LA's Long Beach Port Closure Facebook page, (having been apparently unable to find our local event page). This experience left one of our organizers visibly shaken and, it makes me upset to report that, since this encounter due to concerns for her physical safety, she will most likely not be attending the event.The decision of how far outside our comfort zones each of us are willing to go is one that is up to each individual and, I for one, will never judge others choices during these turbulent and insecure times.
The Port Commissioner came by our organizational meeting voicing concerns about workers who had contacted him. Workers are (rightfully) concerned about getting to work on Monday and on every level I believe that people involved in the Occupy Movement understand that concern. All I can say is that I will do everything in my power to help us evolve our tactics to guarantee whomever wants to work on the 12th is able to and whomever wants to join us in a peaceful protest using our First Amendment rights is more than welcomed. I also hope this is a jumping off point for more coordinated efforts against transnational corporations attempting to take advantage of ILWU, and other organized labor.
My ending point is that protesting and civilly disobeying isn't just our rights as Americans, but these are fundamental rights that have allowed humanity as a whole to be moved forward, bit by bit, as we have evolved into more educated, enlightened, and egalitarian societies. Many times we take two steps forward and one step back over the course of generations, with the footprint of those steps so large and constantly in flux, that they can be hard to view. Recently we've been experiencing one of those rare moments where the footprint is leading forward more clearly than I've ever seen.
Maybe it's because there is so much at stake right now that people are getting involved, with a precipice in front of us collectively, as a nation, that we can either tumble off of or use to take flight.
Please remember your power as people and citizens to change your world is the most powerful force in human history.
Solidarity, unity, and respect.
~ MG