August 12 rallies say it loud: Bush, butt out!
Elected officials from Senate
Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) to mayors and many council members in the
port cities backed the union’s demand that the government get its nose out of
negotiations and let the collective bargaining process work. (Photo
of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD)
speaking in support of the ILWU at the
“This crowd in the White House
amuses me every day, talking about the free enterprise system and how we
shouldn’t see government involvement,” Daschle told participants in the
Some 3,000 ILWU members and
friends waved red-white-and-blue signs as they marched through Long Beach (Photo
of Marching in
San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr. went on record with his support for the ILWU at a morning press conference, with San Francisco Central Labor Council Executive-Secretary Treasurer Walter Johnson at his side.
Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown addressed the crowd of 1,500 at the late-afternoon rally in front of the Oakland Federal Building. (Photo of ILWU longshore Local 10 Secretary-Treasurer Clarence Thomas speaking at the Oakland rally.)
“You can count on the City of
Oakland,” said Brown. “We say ‘Butt out, let’s bargain in good faith and
share the wealth responsibly.’” Members of more than a dozen unions and
community groups showed up in support as well (Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown dons a white cap with
ILWU International President Jim Spinosa at the
“They’re trying to break the ILWU and use 9-11 as an excuse,” said Ricardo Gonzalez, President of the Alameda County Chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement. “If they do it to these guys, they’ll do it to us.”
The political firepower massed at
Portland’s noontime rally included Daschle, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
(D-OR), U.S. Representative David Wu (D-Portland), State Rep. Dan Gardner,
Multnomah County Commissioner Diane Linn and Oregon Secretary of State Bill
Bradbury, who hopes to join Wyden in the U.S. Senate next year and is running
with union backing. Some 700 people braved tight security at Local 8 for the
press conference, rally and barbeque. (Photo
of ILWU Members at the
Some 80 unionists and community leaders came out to Tacoma’s press conference. The 25 elected officials in attendance included Mayor Bill Baarsama, Port Commissioner and longshore Local 23 Vice President Dick Marzano, Pierce County Council Chair Harold Moss and State Rep. Steve Conway, who chairs the Washington state House Commerce and Labor Committee.
“It wasn’t hard to get people out because we’d been working in the community for years,” said Vance Lelli, Local 23 member and chair of the Pierce County Central Labor Council. “A ’34 vet named Tiny Thompson gave a speech about 11 years ago that some of us really took to heart. He said, ‘The big fight’s coming, and you’ve got to do three things to get ready. You have to have your solidarity with other unions, and get your political action and your community services in gear.’”
About a dozen Harleys vroomed in
solidarity at the head of the 60-car, three-bus caravan from
At the end of the day, the demonstrations made their point so clearly that even mainstream media got it. Headlines and newscasts up and down the coast carried the message: Bush, butt out. And the next day, it was back to business at the table.
“The rallies up and down the
coast made it clear that port cities want the federal government out of our
contract negotiations,”
