On
Dec. 12,
the Occupy movement called for a West Coast port shutdown. Targeted
ports included Anchorage; Maui; Portland, Tacoma, Longview, and
Seattle, Wash.; Vancouver, B.C.; and Oakland, Los Angeles/Long Beach,
San Diego and Hueneme, Calif. Solidarity actions were called in
Bellingham, Wash., Houston, New York City, and other cities. Even as
far away as Japan, the Doro Chibo railroad workers took action,
highlighting their solidarity with the members of International
Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 19 in Longview, who are fighting
Japanese-owned transnational corporation EGT in a struggle for their
survival. Liberation News was on the ground in Oakland, Long Beach
and Seattle.
Oakland: Massive turnout
frustrates police, shuts down two shifts
Occupy supporters in the Bay Area
successfully shut down the port of Oakland, the fifth largest port in
the United States on Dec. 12. Unlike in some other cities, the
outpouring of support was so strong that the police were powerless to
stop the shutdown. The Occupy organizers had called for the shutdown
to protest the police attacks on Occupy Oakland, San Francisco, and
Berkeley, as well as to demand
unionization of the truck drivers who work at the ports.
By
5:30 a.m., 1,500 people, including members of the Party for Socialism
and Liberation, had already gathered at the port entrance. The two
largest terminals were shut down, and other work at the port was
greatly reduced. Several truckers, their vehicles stalled in the
road, honked their support.
By
4 p.m., people were gathering in many different intersections
throughout Oakland to take different routes to the port. This
reporter joined a group of hundreds who marched from West Oakland to
join the main contingent. Chants included “What’s disgusting? Union
busting!” and “This system has got to die! Hella, hella Occupy!”
At
the port, the various marches met and at least 10,000
people blocked the main entrance. Frustrated-looking members of the
Oakland police helplessly watched as the huge crowd shut down all
port activity for the evening. A group of young occupiers unfurled a
sign reading “Protest is Fertile! Compost Capitalism!”
Long Beach: Police violence
versus labor, international
solidarity
Over 1,000
students and workers gathered just outside of the Queen
Mary in the Long Beach port at
sunrise and marched on SSA Shipping Company, largely owned by banking
giant Goldman Sachs. Contingents from Occupy Los Angeles and Occupy
Long Beach took the lead on the action as other contingents joined
from Occupy Las Vegas, Occupy Phoenix and Occupy Albuquerque.
Protesters quickly
took the streets as they marched down Pier J, the site of SSA
Shipping. Long Beach police attempted to
block the street and corral protesters onto the sidewalk, but instead
the demonstrators lost all fear of the police and broke through
multiple police lines to form a massive picket that blockaded the
shipping company.
The picket was extended in
order to blockade both SSA Shipping and Occidental Oil, an oil
conglomerate responsible for the mass theft of natural resources in
the Middle East and Latin America. A standoff ensued for over an hour
before police attacked the front line of protesters with batons,
eventually trampling over several demonstrators and arresting them.
Protesters regrouped a
quarter mile away, shutting down access to the entire LB port and
stopping traffic on the 710 freeway for several hours before police
attacked with overwhelming force, leading to more arrests. Truck
drivers honked in solidarity and other workers in the yards stopped
to watch the protest unfold, shouting in solidarity with the general
pro-worker and anti-capitalist message of the protesters.
Seattle: Two
terminals shut down, police get violent
Protesters
mobilized by Occupy Seattle for the West Coast Port Shutdown gathered
at 1 p.m.
in Westlake to march to the port, some three miles away. The Port of
Seattle is the second busiest port on the West Coast. The route
chosen took the spirited marchers past Seahawks stadium, where
football fans were already beginning to congregate for a game
scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. The number of people marching kept
increasing; as marchers approached Terminal 18 under the West Seattle
bridge, this reporter estimated the crowd at around 1,000 strong.
As
the march got closer to the port,
we began to see trucks heading towards and away from the terminal.
Marchers handed out a pro-union statement to the drivers. Many
truckers honked their horns in solidarity.
Terminal
18, the largest and busiest terminal was shut down first. Protesters
picketed and created a barricade forcing traffic into one lane. This
blocked three gates, while the fourth had already been shut down by
the port. Police initially prevented outgoing truck drivers from
leaving the port, while protesters demanded that the workers be
allowed to leave.
At 5 p.m., reports came through that the union arbitrator had
ruled that the picketline was too dangerous to cross and sent the
ILWU workers home with pay.
Protesters then moved to Terminal 5, the location of the only
other ship at port that day. Approximately 100 protesters formed a
human barricade and moving picket line at the terminal gate, while
another hundred stood by in support.
Some protesters who remained at Terminal 18 were herded onto the
sidewalk. When they tried to maintain the blockade, the police used
pepper spray and flash grenades to disperse them. Protesters were
also trampled by police horses used as crowd control weapons. Several
people were arrested, including two medics who had been treating
victims of pepper spray.
Eventually the protesters remaining at Terminal 18 moved to
Terminal 5. After two hours of picketing, the union arbitrator once
again ruled, calling off work at the terminal.
William
West, Doug Kauffman and Jane Cutter contributed
these reports.
