| The Port Shutdown of 12/12 |
[Dec. 8th, 2011|11:24 am]
Nick Mamatas
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Next week, the Occupy movement will attempt to shut down the Port of Oakland and other ports on the West Coast. The "Business Report" section of The San Francisco Chronicle (huffy Democratic Party paper) takes pains to report that the longshore union of the West Coast, the ILWU, is not into this sort of thing!
"Any actions organized by outside groups, including the proposed Dec. 12 shutdown of various terminals on the West Coast, have not been vetted by our union's democratically led process," the International Longshore and Warehouse Union said. "Any decisions made by groups outside of the union's democratic process do not hold water, regardless of the intent."
The Occupy movements that make a fetish of applying direct democracy and near absolute consensus to its own decision making might want to take note of that.
Gasp! Shock! Horror! Anyway, here's a spoiler alert for you:
If the Occupiers create an "unsafe environment" for the workers by rallying outside the gates—said environment being in the power of the union's shop stewards on the ground to declare—the ILWU employees get to go home and don't lose any hours. If the ILWU officially supports the shutdown via their "democratic process" then the shop stewards cannot declare the ports unsafe for work—as they've agreed to it!—and it's basically a one-day strike and nobody gets paid. So the union comes out against the shutdown in the most casual-seeming way possible, but everyone knows what's happening. Anyone who pays attention to the history of community pickets, wildcatting, and inexplicable slow-downs knows how this works already. Indeed, I'm sure the Chronicle columnist does as well. This is pure ideological prizefighting-the presentation of disconnected and contextless factoids to make an attack on Occupy. |
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(Deleted comment)
Really? I thought it was the other way around. All Occupy news must be hidden because It Doesn't Look Good For The Regime. Rug-Sweeping-Under procedures commence and all that. (Deleted comment)
He's suggesting that Occupy makes Obama look bad as well, which it does. Of course, the Dems are trying to co-opt and re-angle the movement, not hide it.
This makes much more sense than the news report.
Dr. Phil
![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/587225/268632) | From: kest 2011-12-08 09:53 pm (UTC)
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So what's with the full page 'plz don't close the port we needz the moneyz' newspaper ad?
Those ads are paid for by the Port of Oakland (the bosses) not the ILWU (the workers). Shockingly, bosses don't want their money machines shut down, not even for an instant.
I don't disagree that the Chronicle editorial is misleading and deliberately dumb, but at the same time, ILWU leadership has gone above and beyond their obligations in distancing themselves from the shutdown. It's troubling, considering its support from the rank-and-file.
Eh, in the end, if the rank and file leads and the bureaucrats follow, that's a good thing too.
It's just that "THE UNIONS ARE WITH US! MOSTLY! WE'RE PRETTY SURE!" is a difficult thing to chant.
From: littlebbob 2011-12-13 02:42 pm (UTC)
when you get a chance - | (Link)
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I'd like to hear your take on what actually went down. The news has some stuff, but I assume it's all wrong.
Looked like it went well. In Oakland, at least two shifts were called off—dunno if the 3am shift was called off—because of the police-initiated roughhousing in other cities, the 3am shift was targeted. Some truckers groused, some were gleeful. Portland and Seattle managed to shut down as well. LA, which actually had the most trucker buy-in from the beginning (as it was their idea) didn't quite manage a shutdown. | |