------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Sept. 12, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
EDITORIAL: STATE OF EMERGENCY? 'No new war against Iraq--keep the government off the docks!" The voices of longshore workers and anti-war activists, defenders of civil liberties and the environment, raised these demands in unison at a protest against President George W. Bush's visit to Stockton, Calif., on Aug. 23. It's a natural alliance for a movement that shows signs of growing and maturing. The struggles to stop the mass round- ups and disappearances of Arab, Muslim and South Asian people in this country, to halt Attorney General John Ashcroft's war on civil liberties, and to put an end to Bush's "endless war" are all organically linked to standing up for labor's rights. Just ask members of the militant International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Since its contract expired on July 1, the ILWU has tried to turn up the heat on its bosses--the Pacific Maritime Association. Enter Tom Ridge--pit bull for the Bush administration's Office of Homeland Security. ILWU International President James Spinosa reported that Ridge interjected himself just a few days into the negotiations on behalf of the bosses. Ridge threatened the union president and other leaders that any disruptions following the expiration of the contract would be bad for the national interest. This is a heads-up for the labor movement. Will any union or activist who militantly defends the rights of the vast, multinational working class be slapped with the label of "terrorist"? Is a union that's forced to strike for workplace justice a threat to "national security"? There's a big catch-22 here. The U.S. has been in a perpetual state of national security alert since Harry S. Truman declared a state of emergency during the Korean War in 1950. The "emergency," which the executive branch issues as a diktat to give itself extraordinary powers, is periodically renewed. Wall Street wants it that way, because who knows what otherwise illegal measures might need to be taken around the world--or at home--to feed its insatiable drive for profits. Today the Bush administration has a palette of five hues of alert levels, one of which is always in effect. According to the government and the big-business interests it champions, there's never a good time for workers to fight back in their own class interests. Strikes will always disrupt capitalist accumulation of wealth, and isn't that what life is all about? So Tom Ridge is trying to lean on the Longshore workers. Once again, the 9/11 tragedy is being used as an excuse to clamp down on the working class right here. The state is beefing up its powers as a weapon in class war. The best way to ensure that workers maintain their right to the strike weapon is for labor to be ready to use it. The battle of the ILWU is triply important. It's a fight for justice for dock workers. It's a frontline struggle to defend the civil liberties of all--immigrants, Arab, South Asian and Muslim people, and the working class as a whole. And it's bringing the most conscious workers to the barricades against the Pentagon's war--really the capitalist globalizers' war--against working people around the world. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
