WASHINGTON, DC -- Green candidates and activists called for national support for locked out workers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), and condemned President Bush's invocation of the Taft-Hartley Act and threats to empower the Department of Homeland Security. Greens see special danger in possible plans by the President to send the Navy to work as scab labor at the docks, which would effectively strip ILWU of its collective bargaining rights.
"Bush's equation of collective bargaining by working people with terrorism is despicable," said Tim Harthans, Iowa Green candidate for the U.S. Senate. " It reveals that the purpose of his Homeland Security Department is suppression of domestic dissent. In this case, Bush is invoking national security for the benefit of Wal-Mart, the Gap, Chiquita, and other corporate members of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition and Pacific Maritime Association in their attempt to break the power of the union and the right of working people to organize on the Pacific coast docks."
Greens have called repeatedly for repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, and criticized the Democratic Party for failing to repeal it during the years Democrats held Congress and the White House. This is the first time that Taft-Hartley has been used in the case of a lockout.
"President Bush, in using Taft-Hartley to force the 10,500 dockworkers back to work for 90 days, is imperiling the job protection, decent wages, and pensions of 170,000 Americans," said Vivian Houghton, Green candidate for Delaware Attorney General, who received the endorsements of the UAW and Coalition of Black Trade Unionists in her state.
"Bush also risks an expanded crisis, as workers around the world have threatened to shut down ports to U.S. ships and cargo," Houghton added. "The blame for empty shelves and economic consequences of the lockout should not be directed at the dockworkers, but at President Bush and the ruthless CEOs of Wal-Mart and other companies seeking to break the ILWU and hold our economy hostage."
MORE INFORMATION
The Green Party of the United States
http://www.greenpartyus.org
National office: 1314 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-296-7755, 866-41GREEN
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
http://www.ilwu.org
Index of Green Party candidates in 2002
http://www.greens.org/elections
