The federal government’s decision to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act against the West Coast dockworkers--under the banner of "national security"--is a serious attack on the entire labor movement that must be loudly condemned. The U.S. rulers are trying to use their drive toward a war of plunder in the Middle East to step up their war on working people at home as well. They hope to deal a blow to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and to send a warning to any other workers who stand up and fight in their interests.

This intervention by the U.S. government in a union struggle for a contract is part of the broader escalation of assaults by the U.S. rulers on workers’ rights. While the use of the Taft-Hartley Act against the dockworkers is an overtly antiunion action, it is of a piece with a range of other assaults on the ability of working people to organize and fight: efforts to increase FBI spying and harassment, the spreading use of secret detentions and trials, and the establishment of the North American Command. This latter measure--the establishment of the U.S. military command to deploy troops on U.S. soil--is an indication that the U.S. rulers are anticipating and preparing to crack down on bigger working-class struggles as the resistance to the employers’ offensive grows.

The bosses and their government aim to convince working people that in the name of "national unity" we must subordinate our class interests to those of the exploiters. "Now is not the time to strike--it’s time to unite behind the flag," say the Democrats and Republicans. They want us to set aside our struggles and instead rally behind their patriotic campaign to shore up the profits of big business through bloody wars to redivide the natural resources of the world to their advantage. The "national unity" argument will be used again to further chop at our wages, working conditions, and rights on the job. This is a good example of how the bosses’ nationalist rhetoric about "we Americans" is a deadly trap--there is no such "we." There is the working class with common interests around the world, whether we were born in the United States or Yemen or Mexico. And there is the employers’ class--them. The U.S. government, White House and Congress alike, represents them, not us.

The big-business press spilled pages of ink warning about the national repercussions of a 10-day lockout on a fragile U.S. economy. This was presented as another justification for invoking the antilabor law. Workers, however, can never start with the profit needs of the exploiters. Our starting point must be: how we can strengthen our class to resist more effectively the conditions imposed on us by the ruling rich. An ILWU victory would be a victory for all working people.

The last time the federal government tried to use the Taft-Hartley Act was in 1978, when Democratic president James Carter invoked it during the 110-day coal miners strike. But the miners simply refused to recognize the strike-breaking law and stayed on the picket lines until they won a contract. They called Carter’s bluff and came out stronger. In fact, the U.S. rulers felt they could not use this measure again for another 25 years.

This kind of government intervention in the unions is not an exception. It will happen more and more as working-class resistance grows. And it underscores the fact that working people need to be organized not only on the shop floor but in the political arena, charting a political road independently from the bosses’ parties, the Democrats and Republicans. This is a road that leads to working people taking political power and establishing a government of workers and farmers.

Today, as the capitalist government uses its power to back the shipping bosses, working people need to rally behind the dockworkers, who are fighting for safety, for jobs, and for the right to organize free from government intervention. It is our fight too.
 
 
Related articles:
Bush cites ‘national security’ in assault on dockworkers
Uses Taft-Hartley antilabor law to back longshore bosses  
 
 
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