PUUNENE, Maui – At its peak, sugar was the number one industry in Hawaii with hundreds of thousands of acres under cultivation on Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Hawaii island. By 2015, only Maui’s Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company (HC&S) remained of the industry once...
The ILWU Canada Leadership Course held on February 14-19 at Harrison Hot Springs in British Columbia, was a tremendous success. Our class was bursting at the seams with 26 participants who attended from ILWU Canada Locals 502, 505, 508, 514, 517, Grain Workers Union...
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The ILWU’s International Executive Board has voted to endorse U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders for President. “Bernie Sanders is the best candidate for America’s working families,” said ILWU International President Robert McEllrath. “Bernie is best on...
Three Local 21 members were honored last month by the Port of Longview for rescuing a mariner who fell overboard into the Columbia River on December 31. The incident happened at 11 o’clock in the morning on New Year’s Eve day when it was still bitter cold at Berth 2...
The recent San Francisco Ship Clerk’s union election has resulted in a new generation of Local 34 officers, including their first Mexican-American President, David Gonzales – and Vice President Jeanette Walker-Peoples – who is the first woman and first African...
On January 28-29, a delegation of union officers from the Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU) and ILWU toured the Job Corps Seamanship Academy at Tongue Point in Astoria, Oregon. ILWU International Secretary-Treasurer Willie Adams, IBU President Alan Coté, IBU...
Longtime Local 34 and ILWU leader Richard Cavalli passed on January 14, 2016 at the age of 75. A native of Oakland, Cavalli was born on June 7, 1940 to his mother, Marion who was a nurse and father, Bud, was a longshoreman. After graduating from Castlemont High School...
When ILWU International Secretary Treasurer Willie Adams was unanimously elected President of the San Francisco Port Commission on January 20 with Vice President Kim Brandon, it marked the first time in the Port’s 152-year history that two African-Americans held both...
The strikingly tall, lanky figure of Ralph Rooker, who was a regular fixture at Local 10’s dispatch hall and Longshore Caucus meetings for more than five decades, passed on December 19, 2015 in San Francisco, the city where he was born in 1940. Rooker came to...
This holiday season, unions are again calling on one of the world’s largest jewellery retailers to clean up its supplier of diamonds. They are urging Signet to demand that multinational mining and metals giant Rio Tinto respect workers’ rights, indigenous peoples and...
