CWA 1180 - Solidarity Works

International day of action set for opening of Charleston Five trial

October 2001

VICTORY!
The ILWU released the following statement 11/8/01:
"Realizing they had no case and fearing the wrath of the international labor movement, South Carolina prosecutors caved in and offered a plea bargain to the Charleston Five that gives them a complete victory and vindication of their cause. For the last year and a half South Carolina Attorney General Charles Condon has been aggressively pushing for felony charges of rioting and conspiracy to riot that carry up to five years in prison. He has called for jail, jail and more jail for the Five. But this week the prosecution offered a plea bargain, a misdemeanor that carries no prison time and only a $100 fine. The defendants were allowed to plead nolo contendere, or no contest, to the charge, which means they never had to admit any guilt.... Charleston ILA Local 1422 President Ken Riley called the settlement a tremendous victory and gave the credit to the unrelenting pressure of the movement. He has called for the cancellation of the demonstrations planned for the International Day of Action Nov. 14."

From Sweden to San Francisco and everywhere in between trade unionists have vowed to take action on the first day of the trial of the Charleston Five in a show of solidarity. The five South Carolina dock workers have been under house arrest for felony charges stemming from a police-instigated riot on a union picket line in January 2000. South Carolina's ambitious attorney general has made it his mission to break the power of their union, International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) Local 1422. The trial is scheduled to begin November 14, and the New York City Central Labor Council is organizing a rally in Harlem that evening.

In the Deep South, the struggles for workers' rights and civil rights are never separable. South Carolina is a so-called "right to work" state, and its power elite boasts about its low unionization rate and low wages in order to attract business. Local 1422 represents not only the best-paid and best-organized workers in the state, but it is also one of the only surviving strong institutions of African-Americans left in South Carolina. When union members had the audacity to fight back against attacks on their livelihood, it was too much for the ruling class to take in this state where the Confederate flag still flies at the state capitol. Police intimidation and provocation came first, followed by criminal charges.

In October 1999, Nordana, a shipping company with a 23-year relationship with Local 1422, refused to renew its contract with the union and started using scab labor. In response, the union picketed the company's vessels and successfully delayed two Nordana ships. When the next Nordana ship pulled in in January 2000, however, the union's picket lines were met with a show of police force. Six hundred police in full riot gear surrounded the dock and the union hall, patrolled the waters, flew overhead in helicopters and mobilized armored vehicles. About 150 union men faced the armed forces of the state. What exactly happened is not clear, but pushing and shoving eventually gave way to vicious clubbing by the police. When Local 1422 President Ken Riley tried to cool things off he was hit in the back of the head with a police baton, a blow that required 12 stitches to close up.

Those who were arrested that night were charged by the police with trespassing. But that wasn't good enough for Charlie Condon, the state's attorney general with gubernatorial ambitions. He had the Charleston Five—four black workers from Local 1422 and one white worker from Local 1771, the clerks' local—rearrested on felony charges of rioting, conspiracy and assault. A circuit court judge dismissed the charges for lack of evidence. Undeterred, Condon empaneled a grand jury and got indictments on the charges the court had thrown out as well as new charges. (Update: The Charleston Five have been released from house arrest, after more than a year and a half. Condon has removed himself from the case.)

In the meantime, international solidarity by dock workers refusing to handle Nordana cargo had helped bring Nordana to the negotiating table and Local 1422 was able to settle a new contract with the company and put an end to the scabbing. But the criminal charges remain, and furthermore, the union is being sued by the company that Nordana had hired to provide the scabs.

The blatant use of state police and legal structures to help employers bust unions and keep American workers in line has a long and dishonorable history in the United States. In the late nineteenth and early 20th century, courts routinely issued injunctions against unions for striking, for boycotts and for other efforts to win living wages. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was used more to declare unions actions "illegal constraints of trade" than it ever was to curtail real monopolies. State militia and federal troops were frequently called out to violently break strikes, and the honor roll of the dead from the Great Uprising of 1877 to the Little Steel strike of 1937 is a testament to the bloody history of the American struggle for workers' rights.

But Charlie Condon and the ruling elite of South Carolina did not count on the solidarity of thousands and thousands of union members throughout the world. In June, over 5,000 people from all over the U.S. marched in South Carolina in support of the Charleston Five, the biggest labor rally the state has seen since at least the Depression. Dock workers in the west coast-based International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) have rallied to the Charleston Five's defense, and defense committees have sprung up in cities throughout the country. Longshoremen on both coasts and around the world have vowed to shut down the ports on the first day of the trial. As the union anthem "Solidarity Forever" reminds us: "In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand-fold."

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