Up front at ITF: (L-R) ILWU International President Bob McEllrath, Lars Lindgren of the Swedish Transport Union, ILWU International Vice President Ray Familathe, Monique Verbeeck of the Belgium Transport workers union, and Paddy Crumlin, President of the Maritime Union of Australia.
ILWU officers joined delegates representing millions of workers at the 42nd Congress of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) that was held in Mexico City on August 5-12.
The scale of the event was huge with over one thousand delegates from nearly 400 unions in more than 100 countries. ILWU International President Bob McEllrath challenged the delegates to move beyond the traditional ITF practice of just issuing declarations, passing resolutions, and writing letters.
“We’ve passed some very ambitious motions here,” said McEllrath to the delegates, “but they’re just pieces of paper and until we stand up against what our governments are doing to the labor movement we are not going to get anywhere. Right now at the port of Limón in Costa Rica there are dockers who are losing their jobs. And if you’re losing your job and your home and your dignity and maybe even your family, these resolutions don’t mean much. I call upon everybody in this Congress to stand up and fight for our brothers and sisters in Costa Rica. If we have to take action, then let’s take action. Look at Costa Rica and ask yourself, who’s next? Right now it’s Costa Rica, before it was Liverpool and then Australia, but we stood up and fought back.”
In addition to McEllrath, the ILWU delegation also included Vice Presidents Ray Familathe and Wesley Furtado, Secretary-Treasurer Willie Adams, ILWU Canada President Tom Dufresne, and IBU Secretary-Treasurer Terri Mast. Also attending were Joe Cabrales of Local 34, Local 13 members Alberto and Alfonso Bonilla, and Local 63 pensioner and longtime Mexico resident, Lewis Wright. “We came to listen, learn, and encourage more action,” said McEllrath.
Many unions noted that they now face the same employers who operate on a global scale. McEllrath noted that longshore workers, for example, often deal with D.P. World, a powerful corporation operating 50 terminals in 30 countries with 30,000 workers – and the company plans to double their capacity in the coming decade.
In what could be a sign of greater activism, Paddy Crumlin, head of the Maritime Union of Australia, was elected President of the ITF. ILWU Vice President Ray Familathe was elected Second Vice Chair of the ITF Dockers Section, and IBU’s Terri Mast was elected to the ITF Executive Board and chosen to lead the Women’s Committee.
McEllrath also nominated two new members to the Dockers Section, Monique Verbeeck from the Belgian dockworkers and Ommund Stokka from the Norwegian dockers to serve as a Youth Representative.