On May Day, 29 ports on the West Coast were shut down as 25,000 longshore workers walked off the job in the first political strike against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From San Diego to Seattle, the massive cranes that move up to 10,000 cargo containers in a day shift stooped. These ports are crucial hubs in the Asia-North America trade and handle more than half of U.S waterborne trade. The two neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach alone bring in $1 billion of cargo daily.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) called for the shutdown. The motion, proposed by its San Francisco Local 10 union branch, condemned the “imperial war” of the US and stated: “It is time to take labor’s protest to a more powerful level of struggle by calling on unions and working people in the U. S. and internationally to mobilize for a “‘No Peace No Work’ holiday for 8 hours 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.”The Local 10 strike proposal initially called for a 24 hour strike. However ILWU bureaucrats had this watered down at the union’s Longshore Caucus on 8 Feb.
Mayday 2008 was a great step forward for the US working class, the first industrial action against any war for decades by a trade union is a very important milestone in the struggle of workers against the war on terror. Longshore workers joined Mayday protests, while in San Francisco the ILWU led the local demos with immigrant rights campaigns and other union locals. Up to a hundred thousand around the country demonstrated in immigrant’s rights demonstrations alongside other locally union-sponsored Mayday protests.
Mayday is beginning to revive in the US, spearheaded by long-time vanguard sections of workers such as the longshore workers and the new, million strong super-exploited immigrant workers who raised the banner of International Workers Day with the “day without Immigrants” strikes and 2 million strong protests on 1 May 2006. Drawing these forces and others together into a rank and file movement to reclaim their unions from the passivity and patriotism of the bureaucrats, and into a new workers party that can combat the bourgeois prison-house of Democratic Party politics would lay the groundwork for the overthrow of US capital, the greatest blow to imperialism there could be.
Iraqi trade unions responded magnificently to the US dockworkers’ call for an international. The General Union of Port Workers in Iraq took one hour’s strike action at Umm Qasr and Khor Al Zubair dockyards. Both sections of workers were united in their demand for the immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces. Other Iraqi trade unions also responded to the US union’s appeal. Over 20 unions, headed by the oil workers, signed a statement, appealing for “support for our struggle for freedom from occupation both military and economic” adding. “We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from our country.”