Saturday, August 16th gather at 5am at West Oakland BART to
march to the Port of Oakland to blockade the Israeli ship coming in at Berth 57
(map of port http://www.portofoakland.com/pdf/maritime/mari_map.pdf)
Statements of support by the Transport Workers Solidarity
Committee:
Stop The Israeli Massacre In Gaza
Full Support For Labor Community Mass Picket At Zim Line
Ship In Port Of Oakland On August 16 at SSA Berth 57
The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee supports the call
for a mobilization against the Israeli Zim shipping line in the Port of
Oakland. This Israeli shipping company operates throughout the world and was
closely involved in supporting the South African apartheid regime. The
Palestinian trade unions have all called for an international boycott of
shipping and trade with Israel to stop the military attacks.
In June 2010, over 1200 community and labor activists with
rank and file supporters from ILWU Local 10 supported a picket of a Zim Line
ship to prevent it from loading and unloading. August 16 is also the second
anniversary of the massacre of 34 South African miners at the Marikana Lonmin
Platinum mines.
The connection in the past between apartheid South Africa
regime and apartheid Israel goes back decades. Today, the South African
government even refuses to even expel their Israeli ambassador while Brazil,
Ecuador and other countries have taken such action. The US government is also
actively supporting the Zionist attack on the people of Gaza and the West Bank
by providing jets, bombs and billions of dollars while the "War On
Terror" is used to militarize our communities and continue murder
and repression against mostly Black and Latino communities.
A mass picket line of labor and community activists on
August 16, 2014 will seek to stop the movement of bloody Israeli cargo. We call
on all ILWU Local 10 longshore workers to honor the picket line whether or not
an arbitrator is called.
Picket Lines Mean Don't Cross!
Today as well, the ILUW longshore workers including ILWU
Local 10 are working without a contract and are under attack with major
giveback demands. There is no contract and no arbitrator to order longshore
workers to cross a picket line. In fact, in Los Angeles, the IBT Teamster
port truckers established a picket line against union busting and the ILWU
International shamefully agreed to a 3 day extension of the contract and
allowed the arbitrator to come in and rule that the picket line should be
crossed. The port truckers then took down their broken picket line. Transport
workers in the US and around the world have the power to stop this massacre
with international working class action.
The massacre on the Palestinians is also not only by Israel
but by the direct military and economic support of the US including Bay Area
Democratic politicians like Barbara Lee. They have voted to provide Israel a
free hand to continue the massacres and even escalating attacks on UN
shelters.
These criminal actions by the Obama administration and
sanctioned by Democrats and Republicans makes a clear statement that
Palestinians do not have equal rights in an apartheid state which according to
Archbishop Tutu is worse than apartheid in South Africa. As many have pointed
out in South Africa, the apartheid regime never used such intense military
bombing on the Black communities as Israel is carrying out on the people of
Gaza.
The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee fully
supports mass picketing on August 16 and also has called for international
transport workers action by workers internationally to blockade Israel. This is
the kind of action that can really challenge the US supported Zionist
terrorism. Get your union and Labor Council to endorse the action on August 16
and to call for a total stoppage of all military and economic aid to Israel.
The time for working class action to oppose these international crimes are now.
For Global Action! Stop The Israeli Massacre In Gaza!
As the Zionist genocidal war against the Palestinian people
continues unabated, workers around the world are stunned by the death and
destruction rained down in Gaza. Transport workers, because of our key position
in the global economy, have the power to stop the wheels of the Israeli war
machine, the power to stop it dead in its tracks.
In 2009, dockworkers in Durban, South Africa refused to
unload the Israeli ship Johanna Russ to protest what they called
"apartheid Israel's massacres in Gaza". The South African Transport
and Allied Workers Union cited as their inspiration the 1984 San Francisco
longshoremen's 11-day boycott action against a ship from apartheid South
Africa. They South African dockers' union then called on other unions to follow
their exemplary solidarity action with the oppressed Palestinian people.
In 2010, dockworkers in Oakland, California of the same
International Longshore and Warehouse Union which struck in 1984 against the
South African apartheid ship, honored a mass picket line of some 1,500 port
demonstrators against a Zim Lines ship protesting the Israeli army's killing of
humanitarian aid workers on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.
Saturday August 16 is the date set for the next protest
against an Israeli Zim Lines ship in the port of Oakland. This date commemorates
the Tripartite South African government killing of 34 striking miners. Known as
the Marikana Massacre, it has become a seminal event in the history of South
African working class struggles.
The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee calls on transport
workers the world over to refuse to work Israeli cargo on ships, rails, planes
or trucks on August 16. If we can stop the Israeli capitalists' profits, even
for a day, we send a message to the racist Zionist regime that we will not oil
their bloody war machine.
In solidarity,
Jack Heyman, Chair
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