Hundreds of ILWU members marched with their families, friends and community members in Seattle to commemorate Juneteenth. Work stopped at the Port of Seattle for eight hours as part of a coastwise shutdown to mark Emancipation Day, and as an act of solidarity with people protesting racism and police violence across the United States.
The “Rally and March to Stop Police Brutality and Systemic Racism” began at 10 am at Local 19’s hall. ILWU motorcycles led the marchers along the waterfront to Terminal 46 before heading to the State Department of Corrections Day Reporting Center. ILWU speakers included Local 19 President Rich Austin, Jr. and Gabriel Prawl, Sr, a Local 52 member and president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute in Seattle which co-sponsored the event. Prawl, former Local 52 President, was the first African-American elected to that office.
Austin started his remarks by quoting the ILWU’s Third Guiding Principle: “Workers are indivisible. There can be no discrimination because of race, color, creed, national origin, religious or political belief, sex, gender preference, or sexual orientation. Any division among the workers can help no one but the employers. Discrimination of worker against worker is suicide. Discrimination is a weapon of the boss. Its entire history is proof that it has served no other purpose than to pit worker against worker to their own destruction.”
Austin added, “We are the union who refused to handle cargo from apartheid South Africa. We are the union who made Dr. Martin Luther King an honorary member and we are the union who has shut down the West Coast! Why? Because there are injustices that must be addressed.”
Prawl spoke about the difference between having a moment and building a movement. “Today we don’t want this to be a moment, we want this to be a movement. The difference between a moment and a movement is sacrifice,” Prawl said. “The ILWU knows how to take action. We call on all labor to join us because we can make it stop.”