The call has gone out again, as it did a month and a half ago, to stop an Israeli-owned ship from unloading at the Port of Oakland.
There is a long and, to many, proud tradition of such actions in the Bay Area. Let's take a trip back in time. First, to 1984.
1984 ILWU protest against Apartheid.
In November of that year, protesting against South African Apartheid, a Bay Area longshore union, ILWU Local 10, went on strike for 11 days, erfusing to unload the Nedlloyd Kimberley, a ship carrying South African cargo.
Coupled with escalating protests at UC Berkeley around divestment from companies invested in South Africa...
In 1990... South Africa's future president specifically cited our university's "Campaign Against Apartheid" as having been particularly significant in hastening the end of white-minority rule in his country.
it sent a powerful message around the globe.
The contribution made by ILWU members to fighting apartheid was recognized by Mandela when he spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 shortly after his release from prison. The ILWU established themselves as the front line of the anti-apartheid movement in the Bay Area, Mandela said to the sold-out crowd.
In 2010, after the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, having set sail from Turkey to Gaza, was attacked by an Israeli force which ended up killing nine people, Local 10 honored a community picket of some 1000 people at the Port of Oakland blocking a ship owned by Zim, a company partially owned by the State of Israel, from unloading for a day.
This was the first ever boycott of an Israeli ship by workers in the US... The "Zim" action was recognized as a direct echo of Local 10's fight against apartheid in 1984, when members refused to work South African steel and coal...
Community picketers at the Port of Oakland in 2010.
Local 10's action was part of a worldwide protest that saw similar actions in Sweden, Turkey, India and South Africa.
The reason why the ILWU was able to uphold the picket was, shall us say, interesting...
The Oakland longshore workers arrived for the day shift and refused to cross the picket line on grounds of "health and safety." The Pacific Maritime Association, on behalf of the employer SSA, immediately called in the Arbitrator (a joint union-management procedure for first-line response to disputes onthe docks) hoping he would order everyone to work. The Arbitrator considered the PMA demand that the police use force to open access through the picketline, to make it "safe" for workers to enter the terminal. The union argued that the Oakland police are a threat to the security of workers and demonstrators.
In 2003, as the U. S. attacked Iraq, Oakland police fired so-called "non lethal" weapons at longshore workers and anti-war demonstrators alike, injuring scores and sending many to hospital. In 2010 the Arbitrator agreed with the union.
Cut to 2014.
Another attack, this time by Israeli forces on Gaza itself...
Four young Palestinian boys killed playing soccer on the beach.
Oakland once again responded, organizers from a number of local groups calling for a community picket of a Zim ship on August 16th. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 2000 and 5000 people showed up, many joining the march to the Port along the way. This was the biggest protest Oakland had seen since the Occupy protests in the fall of 2011.
For three days the Zim Piraeus could not be unloaded because of ongoing pickets and the refusal of ILWU members to cross the lines.
Only after faking its exit from San Francisco Bay and slipping into a berth where dockworkers were schedule to unload a different ship was any cargo unloaded - but from the best accounting, not much of it at that. The ship left the Bay Area bound for Asia on the fifth day, cargo originally intended for California heading across the Pacific towards Siberia.
Success was part the community's doggedness, and part that ILWU Local 10 workers had again refused to cross the lines, citing the presence of the Oakland Police and the danger they posed.
The union released statements that they took no position on the political issues at hand, but felt the police presence created a safety hazard.
It is fitting and ironic that the presence of Oakland's police, nomimally deployed to 'keep the peace" but in fact sent out en masse (at times numbering far more than the tally of picketers) to hinder the constitutional rights of protesters to peacefully assemble and picket, were the reason ILWU workers could continue to rationally argue it was unsafe for them to go to work.
This five-day long action in Oakland rippled around the country, even the world. A solidarity statement was received in Oakland from Barcelona dockworkers. Inspired by Oakland, activists in Tacoma, Washington, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and, just days ago, Tampa Bay, Florida attempted community pickets of their own - with varying degrees of success but undoubtedly noted by Israeli and Zim officials.
Now, with Gaza still under interdict by Israel despite an end to bombardment, the call has gone out again in Oakland..
End the Siege of Gaza!
Picket the Zim Shanghai Starting September 27th.
Please come to a sustained community and labor activist picket beginning on September 27th to stop the Zim Shanghai from unloading or loading any cargo - from when it arrives in Oakland until it leaves.
Oakland may or may not be the protest capital of the United States these days, but with a dog running for Mayor, protests against the militarization of police, and Zim ships continuing to arrive periodically, it's gotta still be a contender.