ILWU stands down at West Coast ports for historic Juneteenth action to honor Black lives

This is a movement!” said ILWU International President Willie Adams, who was invited to speak from the back of a flatbed truck by Local 10 and 34 leaders as thousands of marchers assembled to commemorate Juneteenth on a sunny morning outside the Port of Oakland’s SSA Terminal. “Young people are taking to the streets all over the world. They are militant; they are smart, and they are marching without apology,” said Adams, who was accompanied by International Secretary-Treasurer Ed Ferris and International Executive Board member Melvin Mackay.

Ongoing struggle against racism

The June 19th event was part of a historic coastwise stand-down that reached from the Port of San Diego up to Vancouver, Canada. The goal was to raise awareness about America’s legacy of racism that began with slavery in 1619, is woven into the nation’s founding documents, caused a Civil War that killed 850,000 Americans which was followed by a century of universal discrimination and sometimes brutal repression – the remainders of which are stubbornly persistent today – 400 years after the first African slaves were brought to North America.

Killing that sparked a movement

The stand-down was an act of solidarity with millions of people across America and around the world who joined protests against racist police violence, sparked by the brutal killing of unarmed man George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Floyd’s brutal murder was caught on a cell phone video and triggered continuous protests and demands for sweeping reform of the criminal justice system.

Born in the Bay Area

The Bay Area march and rally was organized by ILWU Locals 10 and 34, where Presidents Trent Willis and Keith Shanklin encouraged locals up and down the coast to participate in a united stand-down on June 19. Their effort won backing from all longshore locals, the International Union, the Inlandboatmen’s Union, and ILWU Canada – along with dozens of community groups.

‘Say their names’

The morning rally kicked-off a three-mile march from the port to Oscar Grant Plaza at Oakland City Hall. Before noon, a sea of protesters left the SSA terminal and streamed down Middle Harbor Boulevard, marching behind the Local 10 banner and the Local 10 Drill Team. The atmosphere was festive but defiant. Marchers chanted, sang songs, beat drums, and joined call-and-responses that named those recently killed at the hands of police. Chant leaders called out “Say their names!”, as marchers responded by shouting the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Peddie Perez, Miles Hall, Oscar Grant, and others who have died at the hands of police or to white vigilantes. An estimated 20,000 strong By the time marchers reached downtown Oakland, organizers estimated that the group numbered 20,000 strong. They stopped outside the Oakland Police Department headquarters for a brief rally. Speakers called attention to the OPD’s massive $330 million annual budget and the Department’s long history of abuse, racial discrimination, and violation of court orders- -behaviors that cost residents millions in lawsuit settlements.

Remembering George Floyd’s death

The massive Juneteenth action followed a 9-minute work stoppage by ILWU dockworkers on June 9th that began at 9 a.m. in all West Coast ports. The symbolic stand-down action recalled the agonizing eight minutes and 46 seconds that George Floyd suffered while being slowly choked to death by Minneapolis police officers.

Origin of Juneteenth

The action also honored June 19, or Juneteenth, which has been celebrated by African-Americans as a holiday since the late 1800s. Also known as Emancipation Day, Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in America and the on-going struggle for Black freedom.

Civil War history

On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived at Galveston, Texas to inform enslaved African-Americans of their freedom and the end of the Civil War. The soldiers came to Galveston two-and-a-half years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery throughout the Confederacy – and two months after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Virginia. Slavery was officially abolished in the United States on December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.

Growing recognition

Early Juneteenth commemorations included an annual pilgrimage to Galveston by formerly enslaved people and their descendants. It wasn’t until 1980 that Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday. It is now recognized in 47 states and the District of Columbia, although most employers fail to recognize Juneteenth as a paid holiday. Coastwise shutdown The call to shut down the ports originated at Local 10 where President Trent Willis sent a letter to ILWU locals at all 29 ports along the West Coast about the Juneteenth standdown which received overwhelming support.

On June 15, the ILWU issued a nationwide press release announcing that ports along the West Coast would stop work for eight hours in observance of Juneteenth. “Juneteenth has long been recognized by the African-American community, but for many others, it was unknown until now – as our nation, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder refocuses on ways to address ongoing, systemic racial injustice,” said President Adams in a press statement. He went on to explain, “Thousands of dockworkers will stop work for the first shift on June 19, 2020, to show their commitment to the cause of racial equality and social justice.” Local 13 leaders also issued a statement announcing the shutdown: “Since the founding of our great Union, the ILWU has fought against racism and injustice. We have de-segregated our membership, we condemned the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, we appointed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with an honorary membership, we opposed wars in the East and Middle East, we supported Occupy Wall Street, we fought for immigrant rights, and we opposed police brutality. How did we show our solidarity for those causes? The best way a longshore worker knows—we stop working. When workers stop working it is the loudest voice we have. It is a voice unlike any other in the US.” ILWU Longshore workers in Vancouver, Canada also joined in solidarity by stopping work for eight hours.

“Racism and division are weapons used by those in power to keep the working class down. A divided class is a class that can never rise and brings true prosperity to us all,” said ILWU Canada President Rob Ashton. “That is why the ILWU Canada Longshore division will be taking part in this coast-wide shut down on Juneteenth. Canada’s hands are not clean either, in the past or the present. We also had slavery; there was the internment of Japanese Canadians, the incident of the Komagata Maru and the residential schools. In the present day, we have the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) and we see systemic racism in Canadian society.” ILWU Canada Grainworkers Union Local 333 honored Juneteenth by stopping work for 9 minutes on June 19 in solidarity with West Coast port shutdown.

International solidarity

During his morning speech, President Adams announced that dockworkers in Genoa, Italy and South Africa were stopping work in solidarity with the protests. General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi of the South African Federation of Trade Unions issued a statement saying, “Comrades in the ILWU, we applaud your action taken in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter uprising. Closing down 29 ports on the US West Coast, the United States gateway to the world during this deep economic crisis, is an extraordinary act. We celebrate Juneteenth with you, the ending of slavery in the US. We also have suffered such depths of racism and have watched the video of George Floyd’s murder in agony.” Jerry Dias, National President of Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector labor union, also sent a letter of solidarity. “On behalf of Unifor Canada members, we salute your membership for their actions today, Juneteenth, in support of Black Lives Matter. ILWU has a proud history of standing up and speaking out for social justice and today you are once again showing the best of the labour movement,” wrote Dias.

High profile speakers

Trent Willis and Keith Shanklin served as emcees during the event. The issue of police violence has effected Shanklin and Willis directly; both had family members killed by police. Shanklin got the crowd fired up at the start. “We are going to make some noise. We want them to hear us coming. We are here to make a change. You matter. Black Lives Matter,” said Shanklin before introducing Bishop Bob Jackson from Oakland’s Acts Full Gospel Church.

The port rally featured high profile speakers including film star Danny Glover along with scholar and civil rights activist Angela Davis. Both Glover and Davis addressed the crowd remotely in order to maintain social distance. Glover called into the rally to deliver his message while Davis stood through her car’s sunroof, fist raised in the air, while her pre-recorded address was played.

Davis thanked the ILWU for shutting down the West Coast ports, noting the ILWU’s long tradition of using their collective power to stand up against racism in the US and across the globe. “Whenever the ILWU takes a stand, the world feels the reverberations,” Davis began. “Thank you for shutting down the ports today, on Juneteenth – the day when we renew our commitment to the struggle for freedom,” Davis said. “You represent the potential and power of the labor movement.” Davis added that if she had not chosen to become a professor, her next choice would have been to become a dockworker or warehouse worker “in order to be a member of the most radical union in the country, the ILWU,” she said.

Family members detail killings

The crowd also heard from family members who lost loved ones to police violence. Their powerful stories illustrated how widespread and systemic police violence is in Black and brown communities across America. Speakers included Michael Brown Sr., whose 18-year old son, Michael, was killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Also speaking was Richard Perez, who donated and drove the flatbed truck used at the Juneteenth event. He spoke about the 2014 shooting of his son “Peddie” Perez by police in Richmond, CA – and how that killing has devastated his family. “My wife cries every day,” he said.

Another speaker was Taun Hall, mother of Miles Hall, a 23-year-old Black man who was killed in 2019 by police in Walnut Creek, CA. She said their family called 911 for mental-health assistance because Miles was experiencing a schizophrenic episode – but their son ended up being killed by police.

Trent Willis spoke about the death of his own brother who was killed by Military Police who were called because of a verbal altercation in a bar. “The time when Black people are arrested, charged, tried, convicted and executed on the spot must end,” Willis said. “My brother was executed for talking back to a white person.”

International officers

At the morning rally, President Adams and International SecretaryTreasurer Ed Ferris spoke on behalf of the International. “We’re not working today. We’re standing in solidarity,” Adams said. He called on police officers to stop their fellow officers when they see them engaging in misconduct. “Good cops have got to start checking those bad cops. You can’t stand by and let something happen. You’re just as guilty,” Adams said. Ferris spoke passionately about the impact that George Floyd’s murder has had on him. “That video changed my life,” Ferris explained as he referenced the ILWU slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” “Until the US addresses its deeprooted racial inequalities,” Ferris said, Americans will not be truly free. Until the color of your skin is as important as your hair color or your eye color, we are not all going to be free. I’m so grateful to see this diverse group of people because we are fed up.”

Saving the Port of Oakland

Local 10 pensioner and long-time activist Clarence Thomas has been a leader against racial injustice for decades and remains active in today’s struggles. He spoke about the attempt by developers to build a baseball stadium, hotels and retail at the Port of Oakland. “We have to stop that,” Thomas said. “The Oakland A’s have to stay in East Oakland, not at the port.”

Thomas then introduced Andy Garcia, Executive Vice President of the trucking company GSC Logistics. “The rich and powerful and the politicians want to sell this port to the highest bidder,” said Garcia. “They want to take away our jobs. They want to take away our future. They want to take away our family’s future.”

Local attorney and former Oakland mayoral candidate Pamela Price also spoke out against the stadium project. “In East Oakland we are fighting against the abandonment of the Oakland Coliseum and the purchasing of Howard Terminal because we know the Howard Terminal stadium project means prioritizing profits over people,” she said. “The Howard Terminal project would destabilize the Black community in both East and West Oakland, and speed up our displacement from Oakland.” Oakland’s Black population has declined by half in recent decades, due to pressure from gentrification and the erosion of good union jobs in the industrial and warehouse sectors.

Rally at City

Hall Boots Riley, film director and frontman for the hip hop band, The Coup, was a featured speaker at the afternoon rally. Riley spoke about the power of workers to effect change by withholding their labor and the need for people to organize at work. “We’ve had, these past two weeks, millions of people in the street all over the country in every single city in the United States. And right now we’re at a point where people are like, ‘What’s the next step?’ And a lot of that question is a question of power.” Riley continued, “What is power? How does it work? What is our power? And that’s what today is answering. Our power comes from the fact that we create the wealth. Wealth is power. We have the ability to withhold that power. Wherever you work, wherever you are during the day, that’s where you need to be organizing.”

Other speakers at the City Hall included young leaders from the Bay Area and across the country, including Chris Smalls, who was fired by Amazon after he helped organize a work stoppage at the company’s warehouse on Staten Island, New York, to protest the lack of protective gear and hazard pay for workers. One of the youngest speakers was recent high school graduate and Bay Area activist Lauryn Campbell of Black Youth for the People’s Liberation. The group organized a march on June 8 in East Oakland to protest the killing of Oakland resident Erik Salgado by California Highway Patrol officers. “Today we are here to say we’re done,” Campbell told the crowd. “We’re done hiding our Blackness. We’re done looking over our shoulders.

Labor takes a stand

The ILWU’s role in the Juneteenth actions was amplified by local, national and international media coverage that was overwhelmingly positive. President Adams said the movement against police violence and racial injustice reflects the ILWU’s history and values. “Our own union was forged out of violent police attacks during the 1934 strike. Two workers in San Francisco, Nicholas Bordoise and Howard Sperry, were murdered by the police. From the beginning, Harry Bridges was committed to fighting racism in the labor movement because he understood that division undermines the power of the working class,” Adams said. “The ILWU has never been silent on the moral issues of the day. This historic moment required a historic response and the rank-and-file of our great union rose to the occasion.”