CUNY Rallies in Solidarity With Striking Dock Workers: May Day strikes shut down west coast ports for eight hours
by Advocate Staff
CUNY doctoral student Carl Lindskoog speaks at the ILWU anti-war rally.
Students and faculty at campuses across CUNY gathered on Thursday May 1 in solidarity with the west coast longshore workers union ILWU, whose unprecedented eight hour international strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan shut down west coast ports from San Diego to Seattle and Vancouver.
At Hunter College, the Hunter chapter of The PSC-CUNY organized a speak out and teach-in outside the West Building to show support and solidarity for the striking dock workers and to celebrate May Day and the gains made by labor unions across the globe.
In addition to the Hunter College rally, students and faculty at other CUNY campuses, including Hostos Community College, Bronx Community College, and Queens College, also came out in support of what was the first real labor action against the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Responding to the historic nature of the event, Sandor John, one of the organizers of the May Day Rally at Hunter College said, “the longshore shutdown points to the need and potential for workers’ strikes against the war. This is an exciting and enormously important development that could make history.” John also noted that although Hunter refused to authorize a sound permit for the rally, as many as 120 students participated in the event adding that it might have been even larger had the police presence been more moderate. “The offensive presence of at least two dozen NYPD and CUNY police, and the fact that you had to go through a barricade to get into the rally, did deter some from joining, but at the high point at least 70 people were crowded into the barricaded area that the cops set up,” said John in an official statement on the rally.
Speakers at the Hunter College rally included a number of professors, activists and labor organizers, including Sandor John and Marcia Newfield of the Professional Staff Congress union; Bill Bachman of New York Metro Area Postal Union — which came out in solidarity with the ILWU; Professors Steve Gorlick, Tom Angotti, and Ida Susser; and DSC Adjunct Project Coordinator Carl Lindskoog. According to organizers, “Lindskoog received loud applause and whoops of agreement when he said we don’t oppose this war because it ‘costs too much’ to kill Iraqis and Afghanis, but because it is a war of conquest, pillage, and plunder. Carl also gave the nitty-gritty lowdown on the conditions and struggles of CUNY adjuncts, ending with a rousing appeal to learn from the dock workers’ example and not be intimidated by anti-labor laws like the Taylor Law. ‘Just like the war won’t be ended by endless marches, but only by using our power, CUNY won’t give in just because we’re right. The dock workers shut it down, and we need to do that too,’ he said.”
Reports form the docks confirmed that more than 25,000 union members had gone on strike and, despite reported efforts by the SSA company (a major shipper of war material) to organize scabbing, no cargo was unloaded and the cranes usually used to unload shipping containers sat motionless for the entire eight hours of the strike. Meanwhile ILWU members took to the streets of San Francisco to protest war and celebrate May Day.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union or ILWU, formed after the 1934 West Coast Longshoreman strike, is one of the most militant and active unions working today. The union has a long history of labor activism and has historically opposed war and imperialism, coming out against the wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the first Iraq War. More recently, ILWU workers refused to unload cargo from a vessel carrying military supplies from China to autocratic Zimbabwe.
