Militant\Naomi Craine

Rally to "Free Charleston Five" at Labor Day Picnic in South Carolina

The event, held at the fairgrounds, was hosted by the International Longshore-men's Association (ILA) Local 1422 on September 3. Hundreds of area trade unionists and their families piled their plates high with food, enjoyed music and games, listened to the speakers, and prepared for the next stage in the ILA's fight to get the state of South Carolina to drop its antiunion campaign against five of its members.

Photographs of the five longshoremen indicted by state Attorney General Charles Condon--Kenneth Jefferson, Elijah Ford Jr., Peter Washington Jr., Rick Simmons, and Peter Edgerton--made the front page of the Charleston Post and Courier that morning, above the headline "Indicted longshoremen adopted as union crusade." According to the paper, "Free the Charleston 5" signs "are all over town."

The paper also featured on the front page the photo of the January 2000 police riot in which 600 police attacked dockworkers who were picketing the shipping company Nordana as it attempted to use nonunion labor to unload its ships. The felony charges against the Charleston Five, which carry up to 10 years in prison, stem from the police riot.

"We feel that they will be vindicated if they go to trial and get a fair hearing," said Leonard Riley, a dockworker and member of the executive board of ILA Local 1422, in an interview with the Militant. "But the state has the scales of justice tipped to their side," he added. Riley explained that the ILA had been expecting a court date in September. "Now it's slid to November. These guys have been under house arrest for nearly two years--for no reason. The dispute with Nordana has been settled. But the five are not allowed out of the Charleston area. They're not allowed out of their houses after 7:00 p.m."

The state of South Carolina has one of the lowest levels of union representation in the country and the rulers of the state want to keep it that way. They are taking this case seriously and hope to give a warning to all working people who may think about fighting for union rights.

Charles Condon, the state's attorney general and the main prosecutor in the case, has called for "jail, jail and more jail.... This is about the rule of law." In the Post and Courier, he asserted that unions "intimidate" people.

Speakers at the labor day event included ILA Local 1422 president Kenneth Riley. He denounced the continued house arrest of the five framed-up union members, explaining that the draconian conditions are intended to portray these workers as thugs. "All of labor is under attack," Riley continued. "If you think that as a working person you have a voice outside of the union, forget about it. We must unite workers all over the world and defend our unions. Because of struggles like this, we have the opportunity to increase unionization like never before."

Riley reported that ILA local vice president Robert Ford spoke at the NGO forum in Durban, South Africa, associated with the UN conference on racism. Ford told the Militant that he also spoke to a meeting of COSATU, the South African trade union federation, in Durban and "we got a fantastic response."

Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, was the keynote speaker at the rally. Scott Wilson of the Screen Actors Guild, Ed Fire of the International Union of Electronic Workers and Communications Workers of America, David Mack from the South Carolina House of Representatives, and State Senator Robert Ford also addressed the gathering.  
 
Workers express solidarity
South Carolina workers involved in strikes and struggles came to express their solidarity with the Charleston Five. About 75 workers, who are members of the recently merged International Union of Electronic Workers and Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA), traveled here from across South Carolina. Many of them had also attended the June 9 rally for the Charleston Five in Columbia, South Carolina. Among them were workers from a Delphi-owned parts plant in Landrum, where the 51 production workers recently won union recognition and are now negotiating a contract.

Also part of the contingent were members of IUE-CWA Local 175, from the Enersys battery factory in Sumter. Workers from this local had come to the previous year's Labor Day Picnic in Charleston, where they discussed their fight against blatant racist discrimination and harassment of union leaders by the company. Since then, the situation has deteriorated. The company has recently laid off more than 300 workers, and is now down to about 50. Local 175 president Vincent Gailliard explained, "They say it's because of the economy. But with this company it may be to get rid of the union." Workers say Enersys did not follow seniority provisions in the layoffs.. In June, management "came into what was supposed to be a negotiating session and pulled their recognition of the union, claiming they have proof that the majority of workers don't want it."

Around that time Gailliard was first suspended and then discharged June 22 "on trumped up charges of lying in an arbitration meeting. An arbitrator ordered them to bring me back to work and they refused, saying the arbitrator didn't have jurisdiction." He noted that the NLRB has laid eight unfair labor charges against Enersys.

The layoff of more than 300 workers is hard, since "other factories are laying off in the area. They have been forcing people out of the job--mostly union officers and members--with layoffs, discharges, and forcing people to take demeaning jobs at half of their previous pay so that they will take unemployment."

Larry Maple, former vice president of Local 175, was also there. He was fired nearly two years ago and other companies in the area have refused to hire him since. Maple said, "If it's so slow, why are they sending work up to [the company's other plants in] Hayes, Kansas, and Richmond, Kentucky."

Maple and Gailliard, like most of the workers at the Sumter plant, are Black.  
 
'This isn't our first battle'
Many generations of longshoremen attended the picnic. Marion Turner a member of Local 1422 for 42 years, said, "From the past--we stand our ground." Turner sat with a friend whose father helped to charter the Charleston local in 1936. "We did this work when it was backbreaking, when we worked by hand, when we had to grease the boards to get the freight out with four men rolling and four men pushing. We went through the strike in 1962 together, the civil rights movement in the '60s together. We are united. This isn't our first battle and I'm quite sure it won't be our last."

Louise Owens, a food service worker for the county, was one of many local residents who came out. Her late husband was a member of the ILA for 40 years, and her two brothers are union dockworkers. "I came to support the union and the Charleston Five." She said there's a lot of lawn signs up around the area where she lives in Ladson, just north of Charleston.

As participants entered the fairgrounds, they were asked to sign petitions demanding Condon drop the charges against the Charleston Five. Stacks of lawn signs were available to take home. Leonard Riley noted that while the union continues to reach out for support nationally and internationally, they have focused recent efforts on building support in the local area. This has included holding "town hall" meetings in local communities and meeting with ministers and local politicians. Speakers at the rally announced that there will be a demonstration the opening day of the trial of the framed-up dock workers.

Naomi Craine is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees Local 1501. Arlene Rubinstein is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1996.
 
 
Related articles:
Chareston five win support in New Jersey
Chicago strikers join solidarity meeting with Charleston longshore workers  
 
 
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