BY BETSEY STONE  
SAN FRANCISCO—More than 100 members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 heard supporters of the Militant Fighting Fund explain the stakes in the fight against the Co-Op mine owners’ lawsuit at an August 9 meeting of the local’s executive board. Local president Trent Willis reports that the local decided to endorse the fund.

Earlier Willis and the secretary-treasurer of the local, Aron Wright, also endorsed. Local 10 is a strong supporter of the Co-Op miners. Seventeen members of the local’s drill team traveled from here to Huntington, Utah, in February 2004 to participate in a “Day of Solidarity” with the miners.

Willis recounted how he had gone with the drill team to Utah “in a snow blizzard” to support the miners, and how a copy of the Militant with the picture of the drill team in Utah had been posted in the union hall afterwards. He said defending the Militant against the mine owner’s suit is important to defending free speech and allowing unions to get out their message when they are in a fight.

Mike Casey, president of UNITE HERE Local 2 in San Francisco, also endorsed the Militant Fighting Fund. The hotel workers are currently in a fight to win a decent contract from San Francisco hotel owners. When Co-Op miners toured here in 2004 the 9,000-member local contributed $5,000 to the strikers.

José Sandoval, a member of Teamsters Local 665, also endorsed. Sandoval was one of the leaders of a strike by workers at Avis Rent-A-Car earlier this summer. He is also coordinator of Voluntarios de la Comunidad, a group of workers in San Jose who met with Co-Op miners during their 2004 tour.

From Georgia, new endorsers include Joseph Lowery, president emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Willie Head, a farmer; Gladys Williams of the Peoples Tribunal of Valdosta; and Melvin Bishop and Willie Adams of the African-American Family Farmers. From Canada, the Toronto and York Region Labour Council added their name and contributed $200 to the Militant Fighting Fund.
 

The Militant Fighting Fund has gone way over the top by the August 15 deadline, with $68,788 of the $60,000 goal collected. The fund-raising campaign got a significant boost from supporters around the world with the work in recent weeks to explain the Militant defense campaign and secure endorsements for this labor defense and freedom of the press case.

View the Militant Fighting Fund chart