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African Trade Unions Stop ‘Shipment of Death’ |
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A Chinese cargo ship packed with rocket grenades, mortar rounds and 3 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition destined for strife-torn Zimbabwe is now reported to be returning its cargo to China. South African trade unionists refused to unload the ship Friday and other African unions have made similar vows in other ports.
Zimbabwe and its president Robert Mugabe have a long record of worker and human rights violations. On March 29, Zimbabwe held a presidential election where the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, is reported to have received more votes.
More than three weeks after the balloting, the results have yet to be released and independent observers and human and worker rights leaders say that’s because Mugabe’s ruling party—in power for 28 years—lost. There has been a new wave of violence and arrests against unions and other regime opponents in the past several weeks following the elections. The arms on the Chinese ship would have arrived just as a crackdown against those demanding democracy in Zimbabwe is occurring.
After the South African government said it would allow the ship to unload in Durban and the arms be transferred overland through South Africa, the nation’s dockers, who are members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), moved to block the arms shipment. Said Randall Howard, SATAWU general secretary:
South Africa cannot be seen to be facilitating the flow of weapons into Zimbabwe at a time when there is political dispute and volatile situation….Our members employed in the Durban container terminal will not unload this cargo nor will any of our members in the truck driving sector move this cargo by road.
The ship left Durban over the weekend and was believed to be headed to other African ports, but the broad mobilization of trade unions, human rights groups, churches and other civil society organizations prevented this ship from unloading its cargo in any port in the region.
Says Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC):
Without the action by the unions of South Africa and neighboring countries in support of their Zimbabwean colleagues, and backed by the international trade union movement, these arms could well have made it to their intended destination. In the current situation, there can be little doubt that the Mugabe regime would have used them against Zimbabweans, as they have done before.
David Cockroft, general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), commented:
We hope that this will bring this affair to a close…there’s a lesson here: that when governments refuse to do what they should, it’s in the power of ordinary people—in the ITF, our member unions, the International Trade Union Confederation, the Southern Africa Litigation Center and the churches—to do what has to be done.
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And in U.S. West Coast Longshore:
VERMONT AFL-CIO CALLS ON WORKERS TO SUPPORT WEST COAST WORK STOPPAGE AGAINST WAR
Montpelier, VT –The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their “unequivocal” support for the first US labor work stoppage against the war in Iraq. The work stoppage, being organized by the Longshore Caucus of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), will seek to shutdown all west coast ports during the day on May 1st 2008. The Vermont AFL-CIO is the first state labor federation to publicly back the Longshoremen; other state federations are expected to follow.
The resolution, among other things, calls the war in Iraq “immoral, unwanted, and unnecessary”, states that the vast majority of working Vermonters oppose the war, and contends that the war will only be brought to an end by “the direct actions of working people.” Many other Vermont labor unions and organizations, including the Vermont Workers’ Center, have also made official statements condemning the war.
The resolution also calls on working Vermonters to “discuss the actions of the Longshoremen, to wear anti-war buttons, and to take various actions of their own design and choosing in their workplace on May 1st, 2008.”
“Workers in Vermont and all across this nation are against this war. We have already demanded that the government end it, but they have consistently failed to heed our words. Therefore working people are beginning to take concrete steps to make our resistance known. If the war does not immediately end we, the unions and working people of Vermont, will also be compelled to take appropriate action,” said David Van Deusen, District Vice President of the Washington-Lamoille-Orange region AFL-CIO.
Traven Leyshon, President of the Washington-Orange-Lamoille Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, said, “Vermont labor has long called for an end to this war. The untold billions being spent on the war could instead be used to address our domestic needs. It is working people who pay the cost of the war - in some cases with our lives, but always with our sacrifices.”
Why beat around the bush? Most business-union collaborators (posing as union leaders) here in the US are too frightened, too ideologically-challenged, and too comfortable to dare challenge the status quo.
Ranks-and-file who allow those pie-cards to even hold union office need to re-think their acquiescence.