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Five
Union Picketers Face Riot Charges in South Carolina
By David Bacon, Pacific News Service, July 25, 2001
The labor movement has gathered solidly behind five workers
- four of them African-American - facing felony charges of riot
in connection with a fight on a picket line in January, 2000.
The case mixes questions of union organizing, racism and politics.
PNS Commentator David Bacon writes on immigrant and labor issues.
CHARLESTON -- This September, five longshoremen -- four blacks
and one white -- will go on trial here facing felony riot charges
arising from a confrontation on the Charleston docks on January
20, 2000. They could go to prison for five years.
While awaiting trial, the men -- Elijah Ford Jr., Ricky Simmons,
Peter Washington, Jason Edgerton and Kenneth Jefferson -- are
under house arrest. They cannot leave their homes after 7 p.m.,
except to go to work, and must wear electronic bracelets around
their ankles, an ugly reminder of the shackles of slavery and
the chain gang.
As the trial date approaches, labor activists and African-American
political activists are pointing to this case as a symbol of
the third-world status of black workers in the south.
"The state of South Carolina has declared war on labor and on
black workers in particular," says Bill Fletcher, a fellow at
the AFL-CIO's George Meany Center and national organizer of
the Black Radical Congress.
The port of Charleston, where the men work, is one of the largest
in the country. And although the state of South Carolina has
the lowest percentage of union members than any other state,
the longshore workers in the port, all but two of whom are black,
belong to Local 1422 of the International Longshoremens Association.
The union's standing came under attack last year, when a Danish
company, Nordana, announced that it intended to load and unload
ships using non-union workers.
"This had never happened before," recalls Local 1422 President
Ken Riley. "Those jobs are something we cherish, and this operation
was going to tear down our industry standards. We've spent 40
years of hard work fighting for wages high enough so that workers
can send their kids to college...When we found out they were
going non-union, we knew we simply could not tolerate it."
Local police cooperated with the longshoremen when they set
up their picket lines, but the state's attorney general, Charles
Condon, took a much harder line. He assembled an army of 600
state troopers and highway patrolmen, and on the night of January
20, they escorted non-union workers into the port with helicopters
and armored personnel vehicles.
Riley went down to the line to try to prevent confrontation,
and was beaten by a trooper and carried off to the hospital.
A melee followed.
When a local judge dismissed charges against arrested unionists,
Condon publicly condemned the decision, convened a grand jury,
and brought indictments against the five. He unveiled "a plan
for dealing with union dockworker violence...jail, jail, and
more jail," and added that he would call for maximum bail, no
plea bargaining and no leniency for union dockworkers.
"South Carolina is a strong right-to-work state and a citizen's
right not to join a union is absolute and will be fully protected,"
Condon said.
Condon, a candidate for governor, chaired the Bush campaign
in South Carolina, and was a member of the Bush presidential
transition team.
"He used our situation in his ads, announcing that South Carolina
needed to elect Bush to stamp out unions," Riley charges. "And
in the same speech when he announced his run for governor, he
gave as a reason that South Carolina must rid itself of labor
unions."
It's not an idle threat. The state's economic development authority
advertises for investors around the world, boasting that workers'
productivity ranks with the nation's highest -- the Port claims
to be the second fastest in the world -- while wages hover 20
percent below those in other areas.
As a result, European companies have built new factories all
along the I-85 corridor from North Carolina to Georgia. None
have unions.
"That's where the industrial development in the South is taking
place," Fletcher explains, "and therefore it's an area with
great potential for organizing, if labor builds a real alliance
with African-Americans.
"Local 1422 not only has solid roots in the black community,
it's in the heart of the transport operation this development
depends on. A strong union there is in a good position to help
other workers get organized."
When cities across the country began passing living wage ordinances,
requiring government contractors to pay wages capable of supporting
families, South Carolina passed a law making it illegal for
any community to establish a salary floor higher than the Federal
minimum wage.
And when the state's current Democratic governor proposed Riley
for a post on the port commission, Condon and his allies not
only shot the nomination down, but introduced a bill into the
legislature (nicknamed "the Riley Act") which would have made
it illegal to appoint a union member to any public board or
commission.
Local 1422's ability to bring black and white workers together,
and to bring unions together with the African-American community,
could lead to coalitions capable of changing the political makeup
of the South.
Local 1422 was joined on the lines by the all-white union for
port clerks, Local 1771. The Progressive Network, comprising
38 community organizations, meets in Local 1422's hall. And
the AFL-CIO has called for a national campaign to free the longshoremen
-- a march early in July drew thousands of unionists from around
the country.
Condon called criticism of the indictments "a propaganda ploy
by labor union sympathizers," adding that "the disruptive efforts
of the Progressive Network and its comrades are designed solely
to divert attention from the very serious criminal charges of
riot and conspiracy to riot filed against these five defendants."
Black labor activists like Fletcher and Riley believe the coming
trial is a racially-motivated attempt to stop the unionization
of black workers in the south. "We have to look beyond the individuals
and the local union," Fletcher says. "A conviction could inspire
new sentiment by authorities and employers here that this kind
of repression is acceptable."
Riley helped lead the demonstrations to remove the Confederate
flag from the South Carolina capitol building. "Racism is definitely
alive and well here. There are those who believe the flag and
what it represents are part of the heritage of South Carolina.
That flag does has a rightful place, but it's in a museum."
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