Make Labor Day Everyday In Oakland
Saturday turned out to be Labor Day in Oakland and I joined a group of friends that joined pickets that led to the ILWU shutting down the Port of Oakland and East Bay Labor groups picketing the Woodfin Suites Hotel.
This morning a group of friends joined the anti-war picket at the Port of Oakland calling for a shutdown of the SSA Terminal. The ILWU (longshore workers union) honored our picket and walked off the job (forfeiting a days wages at time and half) after an arbitrator ruled the picket not legitimate. The walk-out effectively shutting down the Port of Oakland.
I can’t tell you the powerful feeling I got when the longshore workers who had been queued up with their cars outside the terminal began going home. For every vehicle that went by we hooted and hollered as they honked their horns.
Three ships are sat at the SSA docks, and cargo did NOT
move on Saturday. The picket line resumed that evening
and repeated the events of the morning.
THAN as we left the Port Picket, we got a call to join a community picket
at Woodfin Suites in Emeryville. The hotel has been the scene of an
escalating labor struggle and has laid off unionizing immigrant workers. Saturday’s
community picket was being counter-protested by the College Republicans
from UC Davis and SF State, bused in and staying at the expense of Woodfin Suites (so
they announced over their bullhorn), hurling right-wing and racist slurs
and taunts at the picketers and their families.
We marched and chanted with the workers and other people joining the picket (some stopping their cars when they saw what was going on). It created such a scene that I can’t imagine it being good for Woodfin’s reputation.
It was a great action to join and the pickets happen every Tuesday from 4:30-7 PM, Saturday from 7-11 AM, and Sunday 10AM - 12 PM.
3 Responses to “Make Labor Day Everyday In Oakland”
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May 25th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Keep spreading the lies. The only offensive language was by people like you. Woodfin is upholding the law. It is interesting whenever someone who is not pro-labor tries to speak is when pro-labor does not believe the First Amendment applies. Hypocritic!!!!!
June 4th, 2007 at 12:26 am
How do you respond to this video of a union member attacking the college republicans?
(Toward the end of the vid)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InaIT8CaREo
June 7th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Uhh, maybe it’s the fact that I lived in a Army family till my parents died, or maybe it’s the fact that my chosen course of study in College was Economics. Maybe it’s because I’ve worked as and with $5.15 an hour factory workers, and as and alongside managers who make 300 times what the average family in Bangaldesh makes. Maybe it’s because I lugged newspapers through Boston Blizzards when I was teenager, not for the 80 cents it would bring me at the end of the week, but because I wanted my customers to have their newspapers. Maybe it’s because selling shoes when I was 16 years old was a way to meet and greet my fellow teenagers as well as a way to pay for my stuff. Maybe it’s because after my first year, I couldn’t imagine a semester in college without a job, or maybe you can blame it on my marxist lefty college professors, or on riding a bicycle 8 miles to start a 5 am shift at the Colege dining hall - but I just don’t “get it”. How can anyone be “not pro-labor”?