By James Spinosa
ILWU International President
More than a year ago the democratically elected delegates to the ILWU International Convention voted resoundingly to make the defeat of George W. Bush in this November’s election our number one priority. Since then, even while doing the day-to-day work of the union, negotiating and administering contracts, organizing new workers and defending our jurisdiction, we have kept our focus on that top goal. We have been planning and building toward it, coordinating our collective imagination and energies. Now we are in the final stretch of the race, time to pull out all the stops.
This program is not driven by ideology, by some partisan distaste for a Republican presidency. It comes out of our own experience.
We must never forget how Bush abused the office of the president during our 2002 longshore contract negotiations. He intervened on the side of the employers with the intent of destroying the ILWU. He directly threatened to send the military to seize the docks and take our jobs. He threatened to pass legislation eliminating our collective bargaining rights and to invoke the dreaded Taft-Hartley injunction should we exercise those rights and strike. And in an unprecedented move he did impose Taft-Hartley on the workers and their union when the employers closed all West Coast ports with their lockout.
His blatant bias and callous disregard for the lives and well-being of working people weren’t demonstrated just in the ILWU’s situation. Every policy he has initiated in the last four years has had that intent and effect. His tax cuts for the rich and subsequent cuts in programs aiding working and poor people; his proposals to privatize Social Security and individualize pensions for the good of Wall Street bankers and investors at the expense of workers’ retirement; his war in Iraq that has cost the lives of a thousand sons and daughters of American workers, created a budget deficit of unprecedented size and made the world safer only for oil profits—the list could go on and on. What they all have in common is that the rich get richer and the workers get screwed.
The American labor movement will not likely survive another four years of these policies. And the ILWU, with the longshore contract expiring in the summer of 2008, will be in the crosshairs of a Bush lame duck presidency.
We cannot let this happen and we won’t. As part of our strategic plan the ILWU is working with the AFL-CIO on its nationally coordinated effort to beat Bush. As part of that, like just about every other union in the AFL-CIO, the ILWU will be sending rank-and-file activists to key battleground states to get out the vote, to make sure every anti-Bush, pro-John Kerry ballot is cast. We of course will be focusing much of our efforts in our home states of Washington, Oregon and Hawaii, but since it is clear California and its 55 electoral votes will go to Kerry, we will be sending activists from there to the nearby swing states of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Working together with other unions doing the same thing we will dramatically increase our chance of ousting Bush. As we fight side by side with members of other unions, we will strengthen the ties that bind the labor movement as well. We will put ourselves in a better position to advocate for our issues in a Democratic administration and remind Kerry who helped him win.
This will take a tremendous grassroots effort. We need every rank-and-file member to find time to volunteer in your own areas to register voters and make sure they get to the polls. (Contacts in your area are listed on page 5.) It is your responsibility not just to vote for Kerry, but to make sure all your friends, family members and neighbors do too.
It is an unfortunate but well-known fact that campaigns of this magnitude require money. For the last few months the ILWU has been raising money for our Political Action Fund and many of our members have already contributed generously. Others have not yet and they need to step up because time is growing short. Instructions on how to make your contribution are on page 10 of this issue of The Dispatcher. You will also be receiving a mailing at home soliciting a political action donation. We will be using these funds to power our get-out-the-vote effort and to contribute to key Senate and Congressional races around the country, targeting pro-worker candidates so that when Kerry does win the presidency, he’ll have a Congress that will pass his programs.
Do not be discouraged by polls that imply Bush is leading this race. These polls have many statistical irregularities. Mostly they only measure “likely” voters, defined as those who voted in the last election. We have been recruiting many new voters, people who felt disillusioned or powerless in the past, but now, motivated by Bush’s disastrous policies, see the need to get involved. The polls can’t measure the passion of the opposition and the united activism Bush has incited. Remember, the only poll that matters is the one taken on Nov. 2.
Do not let others define the terms of the debate. We’re up against a corporate media machine that sows confusion and blows smoke to cover up the real issues. Some of our members have deeply felt concerns on social issues that may push them towards Bush. It’s up to us to keep the focus on the real stakes in this election. We are fighting to save our unions and any hope of a decent future for the working families of this country.
We will win this election because we must win and because the working people of this country are the majority. And when we unite, organize and mobilize the American labor movement cannot be beaten.
