Updated at 2:50 PM
Occupy protesters nationwide hope to shut down West Coast ports in order to “disrupt the economic machine that benefits the wealthiest individuals and corporations.”
Ports in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Oakland, California; Portland, Oregon; Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, Vancouver, British Columbia and Anchorage, Alaska, are targets of the effort, according to the Occupy the Ports website.
Protesters are also planning to demonstrate at the port in Houston, while Salt Lake City demonstrators are also organizing to disrupt operations of a Walmart distribution facility.
A full list of planned actions can be found at the official website, or follow #D12 on Twitter.
“We are occupying the ports, as part of a day of action, boycott and march for full legalization and good jobs for all to draw attention to and protest the criminal system of concentrated wealth that depends on local and global exploitation of working people, and the denial of workers’ rights to organize for decent pay, working conditions and benefits, in disregard for the environment and the health and safety of surrounding communities. Port workers, particularly port truck drivers, have repeatedly shut down the ports around similar demands of migrant rights and workers’ rights which have not yet been met,” the group states on its website.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Workers union has thus far distanced itself from the movement, as the ILWU has from all Occupy efforts to close down ports.
“Support is one thing, organization from outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another,” ILWU President Robert McEllrath wrote in a letter to local union branches.
ILWU locals in San Diego; Los Angeles; Oakland, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Tacoma, Wash.; Vancouver, British Columbia, and Anchorage, Alaska, said they would not support the protest.
The most solidarity expressed by the ILWU came from leadership in Honolulu, Hilo and Maui, Hawaii, who reported its union members would not cross Occupy picket lines.
Under ILWU contract terms, West Coast longshoremen may not support the shutdown by walking off the job as a group, but individual union members may exercise their First Amendment rights and not show up to work.
Occupy recognizes these contract and federal law restrictions and responds on its website:
“Although we are working with and reaching out to rank and file port workers, we understand that labor unions are constrained under reactionary, anti-union federal legislation such as Taft-Hartley, passed during the Cold War to reverse the gains of labor under the Depression era Wagner Act, from taking job actions on the basis of solidarity or for political causes or demands. As concerned working people organizing for direct action to express and exert our civic concerns and responsibility, we will be engaging in a public, legal mass protest and rally, and a community picket line at SSA facilities to press our exposure of the above-cited depradation by greedy corporations, our support of working people and the 99%, and to stand up for migrant rights against the scapegoat mentality that blames poor immigrant workers for the flaws and crimes that the wealthy are really responsible for.”
It’s currently the early hours on the west coast and actions aren’t scheduled to begin for another fifteen minutes, so check back to this blog regularly as events unfold.
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Update: In Oakland, a large group of protesters has gathered at the port in an effort to shut it down.
Some union leaders at the port have asked the protesters not to do this. The mayor of Oakland has also asked them to change their plan. Protesters counter that it is important to show the power that they have as a group.
“A lot of the union works are also occupiers. They are also being told right now to not cross the picket lines. So that is what we are going to do,” said Delaina Goggia of Oregon.
Occupy Oakland is claiming on its Twitter that the port has been closed, though “closed” is sometimes loosely defined by the group as meaning occupied, but not fully shut down from receiving goods. A livestream of the occupation can be viewed here.
Meanwhile, OWS held a solidarity protest in front of Goldman Sachs in New York City this morning. (Photo by John Knefel)
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12:25 PM: Independent journalist John Knefel was arrested shortly after taking the above photograph along with 16 other protesters, according to Knefel, who continued to tweet while in the back of a paddy wagon. His sister, Molly, tweeted that Knefel was thrown to the ground by NYPD and arrested for filming the protest.
So continues the police tradition of arbitrarily imprisoning journalists not recognized as “traditional reporters.” While being driven to jail, Knefel tweeted, “None of us have official credentials, just lots of Indy journos & citizens w cameras.” Knefel has been covering the Occupy movement since its first days and his work has appeared at Salon.
Susie Cagle will have a report up at Urpising later today on the California port actions, but the brief recap is that a group was successful in stopping a line of big-rigs from entering the Port of Oakland this morning.
The plans to shut down city ports has caused quite a bit of controversy and backlash from several unions, some within the Occupy movement itself. Some say the decision to target ports is misguided as the only people likely to suffer from a few lost hours of productivity are the workers, and not the CEOs of businesses.
The Alameda County Building and Construction Trades Council’s secretary-treasurer, Andreas Cluver, said many of his union’s workers were recently hired at port building projects after long stretches on unemployment. Given that, a port shutdown aimed at punishing the 1 percent “makes no sense,” he said.
He said no union at the port supports the shutdown.
“We’re extremely supportive of the message of Occupy Oakland, and we did come out to support the Nov. 2 general strike, but we’re not behind this one,” Cluver said. “When working people aren’t involved in the decision on whether to shut down their jobs at the port, that’s problematic. And we weren’t consulted. Losing a day of wages is hard.”
He added: “The port is a public entity. It’s really not the 1 percent. Go shut down a country club - that’s the 1 percent.”
2:50 PM: Early this morning, the Port of Portland shut down two terminals in anticipation of the day’s actions, meaning those workers will lose a day’s wages.
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