West Coast Ports and the coming debates

While I write this, the Port actions are still going on in Seattle, and I heard word of wildcat actions still going on in Vancouver and Portland.  So CNN reported this:

“What has this accomplished?” he asked. “This is disrupting the 99%”

Oakland has been a flashpoint of the Occupy movement since October, when police used tear gas to break up demonstrators who refused to leave downtown. One demonstrator, a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq, suffered a skull fracture after being hit with a police projectile, according to a veteran’s group; police said they acted after the crowd threw paint and other objects at officers.

The ILWU — which represents 15,000 dockworkers — has distanced itself from the protest movement. The union “shares the Occupy movement’s concerns about the future of the middle class and corporate abuses,” ILWU President Robert McEllrath wrote to locals last week — but he urged the movement to stay out of its dispute with the port of Longview, Washington, and warned against “outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda.”

Monday’s demonstrations also took place in Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston and Portland, Oregon. Organizers said the goal was to shut down ports in an effort to “disrupt the economic machine that benefits the wealthiest individuals and corporations.”

In Houston, police arrested 20 protesters after dozens of police on foot and on horseback confronted a somewhat larger group of Occupy protesters who blocked an interstate on-ramp, authorities said.

Groups of up to six protesters lay down on the pavement and interlocked arms and legs, while a larger group stood near them yelling protest slogans. Officers set up barricades to cordon off protesters in an attempt to free the ramp for traffic. The majority of the protesters could be seen moving behind the barricades, with a few exceptions, including those who had lain down.

Police handcuffed some protesters and led them to a police vehicle. Six face felony charges of using criminal instruments to block a public roadway, said Houston Police Department spokesman Victor Senties.

In Long Beach, California, protests caused isolated traffic delays but did not hinder port operations, according to Police Chief Jim McDonnell.

There is quite a bit to unpack in that: First, notice that labor leadership is moving away from a broader labor movement is only concerned about its specific workers. The leadership doesn’t want solidarity because then solidarity would be expected of it.  Second, we see other copy-cat disruption tactics without clear goals.  I don’t know how I feel about this except it is easy pickings for the cops. Third, the ILWU leadership is not the same thing as the ILWU rank-and-file, so it is very hard to say given that the rank-and-file didn’t vote, but they will held to the picket line in three cities, so CNN is obviously not giving you the whole story.  

Still, reading the articles, #Occupy had success at Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Longview, Washington,  But losses at Long Beach and Los Angeles. Symbolic victories can be listed to include Scott Olson leading the line at Oakland. 

So interesting, we’ll see how this is used over the next three days. Does this lead to more radical “strike” actions, will labor back it or more even more towards the Democrats. This article goes into the problems well and shows the mixed reactions just prior to today:

Rank and filers won’t get a chance to have their say. Local 8’s next membership meeting is December 14.

Occupiers leafleted the dispatch hall but members say they might have succeeded in convincing more of the Portland rank and file if outreach had started before the action was set.

Levens expressed support for the Occupy movement’s goal—to confront corporate power—but not its approach in this action.

“The lack of communication with the members and union officials leaves the Occupy activists and union members without the benefit of sharing our [earlier] Oakland experience with shutting down the port and community pickets,” said Levens, who has been active in Oakland general assemblies.

Parker said the constraints on unions are too great to expect a better process.

“Even if Occupy Oakland were the best, most democratic it could be, there is no way that they could consult with elected leaders of the ILWU,” he said. “Unions are faced with a choice of gambling everything [by openly supporting a strike] or of protecting themselves by disclaiming responsibility and honoring lines by using loopholes.”

It doesn’t help that the institutions assessing liability—right-wing courts—are not on labor’s side.

Parker says the occupiers may have to look for new ways to hit the 1%.

“The continued focus on the docks, because it is easy and takes advantage of the solidarity traditions of the dock workers, makes the dock workers themselves the targets and the targets start resenting it,” Parker said.

Obviously the Longshoremen respected the picket lines in Oakland, Portland, and Seattle and violence has been minimal.   This, at current, can be rated a success in the short-term, and it changes things for Occupy and the Left as a whole.  In that sense, it is a net good.  But it also exposes further intractable areas for the left and for Occupy: these contradictions and complications have yet to be resolved, but I suspect they will start pushing things in the forefront.

Updated: According one of my online sources, the attacks in Houston were not a “confrontation” because “demonstrators were mostly asleep at the time, since the attack was unanounced and in the dead of night.” So keep your skeptical eyes up on the articles describing police actions.