“Bloody Thursday” † Brothers, RISE AGAIN “Lords of the Docks”!
“Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Whaddaya got?” – Marlon Brando, The Wild One.
“Nothing’s going to move without us — nothing,” Harold J. Daggett, President of I.L.A
I.L.A, for your San Francisco Brothers ‘it was war.’ It was “Bloody Thursday.”
Brothers, rise again to another battle ‘On the Waterfront.’ Fate of the ‘Lords of the Dock’ is in your hands!
“On July 5, 1934, striking workers and police clashed in a series of riots that swept the waterfront from Rincon Hill to the Ferry Building. Two men were killed by police and more than 100 were injured.
The governor called in the National Guard, the unions called a general strike that paralyzed the city.” (San Francisco Gate)
It’s now 2024. Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (I.L.A.), we’ve got your back. Here’s what you got working for you → Election, Climate Crises, Command of Job Market and a hungry Commerce!
United States Maritime Alliance, it’s On! Whaddaya got?
Longshoremen, my Brothers, you got leverage! You’re 47,000 strong! And….
“There is no practical alternative to the East and Gulf Coast ports for moving many goods in and out of the eastern half of the country. And the ports can’t operate without longshoremen, who move metal boxes called containers on and off ships and handle other economically crucial cargo, like cars and heavy machinery.”
Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (I.L.A.), we’ve been here before. In November 23, 2021, as I pointed out in my paper, “Where are the “Lords of the Docks” and Kings of the Roads?”
The LA Times ran the February 17, 2015 story “Small but powerful union is at center of port dispute.” Then as now “The International Longshore and Warehouse Union…dockworkers who stand guard over a crucial chokepoint in the global economy.”
More importantly, ILWU workers are not only indispensable but “have unique skills that aren’t easily replaced,” said Goetz Wolff, who teaches about labor and economics at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “They’re not going to roll over and play dead.”
International Mob Bosses, Time to Pay Up!
According to the AP News, Boise Butler, president of the union local said, “the shipping companies, he argued, made billions during the pandemic by charging high prices.”
“Now,” Butler said, “we want them to pay back. They’re going to pay back.”
Frank Ponce De Leon, a coast committeeman with the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Los Angeles, made it pretty clear three years ago:
“These terminals are owned by foreign-owned shipping companies. And a lot of times, they dictate or control what we do on the docks. We don’t just show up, you know, unannounced and say, we’re ready to go to work. What normally happens is that orders are placed within our joint dispatch halls for labor at a specific terminal or terminals. And we fill that labor and go to work. Without the employer and without the terminal operators ordering us, we don’t show up. So a lot of this is out of our control. And we’ve been facing this for a long, long time now.”
De Leon says the problem goes beyond the ports “we need truck drivers and truck companies to pick up cargo, deliver them to the warehouses. We need warehouses to remain open or receive cargo. We need equipment.”
Damn straight! “This is a national problem, and not only national, this is a global problem.”
So pay up foreign mob bosses!
Who We Fight For!
“I.L.A.! I.L.A.!” “You’re making history here because we’re doing one thing. We are fighting for our families and we are fighting for the rights so that we have a right to get a piece of that money that they got so much of. And we’re going to do it. We’re going to walk away with a great contract. God bless us all.” “I.L.A.!” “All the way!” “I.L.A.!” “All the way!” – Harold J. Daggett, President of I.L.A (Source: (New York Times)