Longshoremen

Longshore Workers Remember The Struggle To Free The Charleston Five

July 10, 2025 Kerry Taylor, Labor Notes. Organize! Charleston Five, History, Longshoremen, Racism, Unions

Dockworkers from around the world reunited in South Carolina for a week in June to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the successful campaign to “Free the Charleston 5” and the founding of the International Dockworkers Council. For nearly two years, five members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) faced felony rioting charges and prison sentences stemming from their roles in a January 2000 confrontation with police at the entrance to the Columbus Street Terminal in Charleston. The case sparked international outcry from unions and civil rights groups, who viewed the charges as a racist attack on organized labor by politically ambitious South Carolina Attorney General Charles Condon.

How San Francisco Longshoremen Made Their Union A Powerhouse

August 13, 2024 Peter Cole, Jacobin. Strategize! California, History, Longshoremen, San Francisco, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University and the author of Dockworker Power: Race & Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area (University of Illinois Press, 2018). In this interview, Cole and Jacobin’s Benjamin Y. Fong discussed the dedication and success of the longshore workers in the 1930s and ’40s in overcoming racial division on the docks. Clips from this interview are included in Episode 6 of Organize the Unorganized (among others), which also includes archival interviews with the first International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) president, Harry Bridges, and the first black president of ILWU Local 10, Cleophas Williams.

East Coast Longshore Contract Clock Ticks Down

August 13, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Strategize! Longshoremen, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Union negotiations covering longshore workers on the East and Gulf Coasts have been stalled since June 10, bringing the union closer to a potential strike at the September 30 contract expiration. Leaders of the International Longshoremen’s Association have called a September 4-5 delegates meeting to discuss demands and strike strategy. Last week the union sent the employer association, known as USMX, a strike notice that federal law requires 60 days before a strike. The contract between the ILA and the USMX is one of the largest expiring this year, and a strike would have massive economic impact—billions of dollars per day.

ILWU Leaders And Members On Ukraine: Stop The Ukraine War

December 17, 2022 Socialist Action. Resist! Anti-War, Longshoremen, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

We, members and retirees of the ILWU, are very concerned about the Coast Committee’s public statement of March 3, 2022 on the war in Ukraine. It diverges from the many anti-war positions that our union has taken even when it was unpopular to do so. The ILWU has always criticized NATO’s war moves. Since the end of World War II we’ve opposed U.S. wars and coups in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Serbia (former Yugoslavia), Cuba (Bay of Pigs Invasion), Chile (coup), El Salvador and Nicaragua. On May Day 2008, ILWU shutdown all West Coast ports to oppose the “imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” (as the Caucus resolution read). We have taken action at the point of production against U.S. wars and the apartheid government in South Africa.

ILA President Warns Members Will Not Work Ships Without Crews Aboard

October 2, 2021 International Longshoremen's Association. Resist! Automation, Longshoremen, New Jersey (NJ), Worker Rights and Jobs

North Bergen, NJ - Harold J. Daggett, President, International Longshoremen’s Association has a message to any shipping companies planning to utilize autonomous container cargo ships without crew: Don’t sail them into ILA ports from Maine To Texas, Puerto Rico, and Eastern Canada – they won’t be unloaded or loaded by ILA Members! Media reports in recent week have featured stories from Norway and Japan about companies and shipping lines developing and testing container vessels that will sail with no crew aboard – fully self-piloted,” relying on satellite guidance, onboard sensors, and artificial intelligence making decisions based on these inputs,” according to a Facebook posting by Seably, a European maritime on-line training company.

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