The Trustees Committee reviewed the income and disbursements against the budget and found the International’s finances to be sound. In their report to the board, the Trustees asked the International Officers to formulate a plan in case of a longshore strike this summer and also requested the officers give them an overview of a proposed budget for the 2000 Convention at the next meeting of the Trustees.

The Elections Procedures Subcommittee submitted its report to the board. The board established the subcommittee to review the current International election rules in the union’s Constitution and to make recommendations to deal with a number of ambiguities and questions that have arisen about the process since the ILWU changed to mail ballots in 1994. The subcommittee’s recommendations will be considered in its entirety by the board in August after giving each board member time to study the text and consult with the various locals or divisions in their areas.

In response to a request by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour the board agreed to foot the bill for one delegate to visit the U.S. and to ask the Coast to pay for another as part of a mutual international worker liaison. International Secre-tary-Treasurer Joe Ibarra attended the Confederation’s Congress in Hanoi last November.

The board also agreed to send Ibarra and Northern California board member and Local 6 West Bay Business Agent Fred Pecker to a two-day conference in Torreon, Mexico of low-wage worker organizations in Mexico and the U.S. The conference is an attempt to coordinate and support member groups’ organizing efforts on both sides of the border.

The board passed three Statements of Policy, one held over from the last board meeting on Local 26’s 2-4-24 organizing assessment indebtedness, one on the escalating military budget and the elusive peace dividend and another supporting the call for freedom for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and endorsing the demonstration for him April 24 (see below).

The board adjourned in memory of departed Local 23 President Lee Braach.

Statement of Policy on Mobilization to defend Mumia

WHEREAS: Last October the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied the appeal of death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal who was framed and falsely convicted of killing a Philadelphia policeman; and

WHEREAS: Mumia Abu-Jamal, a radio journalist, was the target of the Philadelphia police since his youthful days in the Black Panther Party; and

WHEREAS: The notorious Judge Sabo, who presided over the trail and was a member of the Fraternal Order of Police, has sentenced twice as many people to death as any other sitting judge in the U.S.; and

WHEREAS: The Philadelphia Police Department, according to a 1979 federal government investigation, is rife with corruption and police brutality; and

WHEREAS: In 1995 the Philadelphia police scandal was highlighted in newspapers across the country with accounts of innocent people being blatantly framed, resulting in the release of 300 innocent people from jail, many convicted by juries from which blacks were routinely excluded; and

WHEREAS: Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge has pledged to sign Mumia’s death warrant and is set to begin the execution process of an innocent man; and

WHEREAS: The ILWU, through resolutions from its organizational divisions and letters from its International Presidents, has defended Mumia Abu-Jamal; and

WHEREAS: Last year Mumia endorsed the victorious Neptune Jade defense campaign of the ILWU and refused to give an interview to the scab “20-20” program reporters during the ABC-TV lockout of NABET/CWA union workers; and

WHEREAS: On April 24, 1999, there will be national demonstrations to demand a stop to the execution of and a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal—on the East Coast in Philadelphia and on the West Coast in San Francisco, as well as international demonstrations; and

WHEREAS: The organized labor movement has the power through action to ensure justice for this principled and courageous freedom fighter, which he can’t get in the courts; THEREFORE BE IT

RESOLVED: That the ILWU go on record to:

1) Support the San Francisco demonstration April 24 and the Longshore Division’s stop-work meetings for that day demanding Abu Jamal’s freedom.

2) Mobilize our membership on the coast to participate in the April 24th actions demanding: “Stop the Execution! Free Mumia!”;

3) Have the ILWU International President write a letter on behalf of the International Executive Board to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge demanding Abu-Jamal’s freedom and encourage all members to do the same.

Satement of Policy on the Escalating Military Budget and the Elusive Peace Dividend

WHEREAS: The U.S. people have never received the Peace Dividend due them after the end of the Cold War; and

WHEREAS: It was 40 years ago that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us that the military industrial complex would find endless ways to justify every growing military expenditure; and

WHEREAS: President Clinton’s call for a $110 billion increase in the Pentagon budget over the next six years includes $7 billion to begin construction of Ronald Reagan’s discredited “Star Wars” weapons in space program, which has already consumed $55 billion for research; and

WHEREAS: This drive to deploy weapons in space abrogates the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) as well as continued NATO expansion into Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary now means the Russians will postpone ratification of the Start II treaty that would have dismantled thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles; and

WHEREAS: One in five U.S. children now lives in poverty and one quarter of African American men are in some phase of the criminal justice system and the U.S. is the only industrialized nation without a universal health care system; THEREFORE BE IT

RESOLVED: That the ILWU publicly opposes any increases in military spending and instead proposes a Peace Dividend to fix our cities, save our children and provide a deserved social safety net for all American workers.