Quick follow-up on today's action at the Oakland docks: we won! Something like 400 or 500 people - many who had also been there at 5:30 in the morning, plus others who hadn't made the first shift - turned up to resume the picket line at 4 p.m. I was surprised there weren't more: I had assumed there would be far more people in the afternoon, with the BART running, but I guess even in the Internet age it's hard to get people out with only a a couple of hours notice.
Still, there were more than enough people to re-create strong picket lines at all three gates to the berth where the Israeli ship was coming in. Faced with the prospect of workers again refusing to cross the picket line and the arbitrator again ruling in their favor, the company that runs the dock (SSA, or Stevedoring Services of America, which has also run the port of Basra, Iraq, since the American invasion in 2003) elected to cancel the evening shift. The ship docked while we picketed, and presumably it will be unloaded tomorrow - right now we don't have the strength to keep up the picket line indefinitely, and even if we did, we can't really ask the longshore workers to stay off the job forever. But we succeeded in delaying it for a full day, which was exactly what we'd hoped to achieve.
And while none of the local TV stations made it to the 5:30 a.m. picket - despite an extensive media outreach effort - they were there in droves this afternoon. The couple of segments I caught tonight weren't too bad, even though they gave disproportionate time to the two Zionist counter-protestors who camped out, waving Israeli flags, across the street from the afternoon picket. As of 11:00 p.m. PDT on Sunday, Google News finds 284 stories about the action, and my sampling suggests that most of them - such as this story from the Bay Area News Group, which includes the Oakland Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and most of the other community papers in the region - are fair if not actually sympathetic.
One final observation: the Oakland police were out in force from before dawn until our closing rally at 7 p.m., but aside from bugging us to stay out of the almost completely deserted roadway in front of the pier, they made no effort to interfere with the picketing, even when we blocked the two or three cars that tried to cross the line. In fact, they weren't even dressed in riot gear, and some of them went out of their way to be polite. Quite a change from their behavior at the same location in April 2003, when we called a similar early-morning community-labor picket to protest a ship being loaded with supplies for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the cops responded by blasting us, without the slightest provocation, with an array of "sub-lethal" toys they had recently received from the Department of Homeland Security, including "flash-bang" grenades and guns firing wooden dowels and bean-bag rounds.
I'll never forget either that action or today's, but this one was a lot more satisfying!
RE: “we won!” – Norr
CONGRATULATIONS: “I’ll be your whimpering slave!” – Jenny von Loeben, Vier Minuten (4 Minutes) [2006]
Stevedoring Services of America used to be called something else; it ran a few ship services in the Pacific North West. In 2003, it suddenly won a contract for Basra port against P&O, the British company, whose army had just taken Basra, which pissed off the Brits.
Stevedoring is, basically, having a man to sit behind a desk to employ a certain number of casual labourers for the day, to load or unload daily cargoes.
It’s basically a business with a fixed margin, so it’s got a certified profit take, so long as it doesn’t employ too many casual labourers. It’s as easy as 1-2-3, but there’s plenty of money in it.
Remember Marlon Brando in ‘On the Waterside”?
On The Waterfront, Lone Ranger.
Meanwhile, kemo sabi, Israel speaketh with severly forked tongue:
link to haaretz.com
Naturally these details are left out of the USA MSM, which is telling the US masses that Israel has decided to honor the world’s request to significantly liberalize the blockade filter of goods into Gaza.
“Remember Marlon Brando in ‘On the Waterside”?”
Oh, that was good, but it doesn’t hold a candle to that great military adventure movie “Watership Down”
This looks like more collective punishment against Jews, any time people say they are punishing Israelis, in effect this means Jews.
-Jews are barred from Arab-only roads in Judea / Samaria (West Bank)
-Jews are barred from walking most of the streets of Hebron (Second Holy City in Judaism)
-Jews are barred from praying at the Temple Mount (First Holy site in Judaism)
-Jews are barred from visiting lands they were expelled from in Gush Katif (Example of apartheid against Jews)
-Jews must wait in lines for security checks around Israel and are inconvenienced due to terror threats
All of those so-called measures of collective punishment were imposed by the Jewish state. What’s your point, exactly?
Stop using innocent Jews as human shields, Mr. Israeli. American Jews suffer none of these things you mention.
Hell, ISRAELI JEWS suffer none of the B.S. you’re slinging.
Hey, max, nobody said being Jewish was supposed to be easy! And really, pal, do you think it’s your place to question God’s actions? Oh, I forgot, you’re a Zionist-supporter, and they outrank God.
mN – Are you confirming that Israel is looking more and more like Nazi Germany?
I am reporting this hurtful comment *lip wobbles* Seriously, this guy is crazy. All these actions were taken by Israel and it’s OUR fault?
“any time people say they are punishing Israelis, in effect this means Jews.”
Oh, and people living inside a political structure which commits more crimes than you can count should never ever be boycotted if they happen to be Jewish! Because they are so special and above any moral law, or what?
Why don’t you fuck off, you supremacist clown?
You don’t understand what collective punishment is. You’ve already been criticised by the owner of this blog for conflating jews and Israelis.
Tedious.
Thanks Henry. Congratulations. It got good coverage in the Israeli press. YNET was the best – a pretty long, factual piece, including a connection to the Swedish dockworker’s action. Maariv was short and to the point. Haaretz downplayed it and had some smarmy excuses from the Israeli consul in SF, but has since shortened the story (both in Hebrew and English) to the bare bones. All three websites included a video clip.
Henry, dont forget it was Father’s Day, so the afternoon crowd was guaranteed to be the lesser one in terms of numbers.
Thanks for your report and your efforts.
This website is reporting you guys made a big mistake…
link to israelnationalnews.com
This website …
Arutz 7 (Israel National News) is not a credible source (nor is Akiva Tor, for that matter).
Sorry guys, the Free Tibet protest was the next port over :D
Imagine these guys having the guts to protest a Chinese ship! What Chutzpah!
From the INN “story”:
“they displayed great ignorance about what actually happened; one of them even compared barely armed Israeli Defense Forces troops with Somali pirates.”
Oh no, the protesters used logic. That can only be antisemitic!!
To paraphrase one of the hasbarists here: “From time immemorial, the history of the Jewish people has been one of struggle against anti-Semitic logic and facts.”
Good one Frances :-)
I think you’re pulling our leg…why would they publish a lie like that??
Why would who publish a lie like what, jim?
If you’re talking about the Israeli consul’s assertion that the Israeli ship was not due in until the evening (reported by Arutz 7, and Haaretz this morning, until they took it down), I can think of a few reasons. He may be telling the truth (for a change), but some independent corroboration would be in order.
As for the Chinese ship, no one claimed that the Israeli ship was the only one docking/docked, and a cancelled shift would obviously affect all ships.
Yesterday afternoon I read one news source that said that the Israeli ship was originally scheduled to arrive early in the day but was delayed for some reason (mechanical problems, perhaps?) and so arrived later than originally scheduled. I can’t remember the source today or else i would post it here.
Conceivable, tree, but a source other than the Israeli consul in SF (the source of both the Haaretz and Arutz 7 stories), would be a little more convincing.
In any event, the unprecedented event (unloading held up for 2 shifts) actually happened, and the reasons for it are clear – whether the Israeli ship was there or not. The best Israel and its apologists can hope for, in terms of damage control, is to paint the protesters as being somehow foolish or dishonest. The goal was not to prevent the ship from being unloaded, but to raise consciousness, and as such has been a resounding success.
I didn’t mean to imply that 1) I was attributing the news source to the Israeli consul, or 2) that what i heard corroborated the consul’s statement.
in fact I was trying, unsuccessfully it seems, to refute what the consul said, in that, despite the consul’s protestations, the ship was originally scheduled to be in port during the time of the first shift, and therefore a picket line before the start of the first shift was entirely rational and in fact the only time that would have successfully prevented the off-loading of the ship during that shift. ( If the workers were already on the job prior to the formation of picket line, it would have been pointless to urge them not to cross a picket line that they were already well past.)
I think that Henry Norr could very well be correct in his supposition that the ship was purposely held back from docking until after the second shift, with the hope that another picket line would not materialize then. After the first shifts decision not to cross the line at 5am, there was no reason for the ship not to delay its berthing until after the second shift arrived.
According to the schedule posted for at least the last week or so on the Zim web site, the ship was due to dock in Oakland at 2 p.m. yesterday and to leave again (for China) at 8 p.m. (The schedule is still there: link to zim.co.il
). For an action like this, though, the exact arrival time of the ship is irrelevant – the picket line has to be well established before the work shift begins. Since it was due during the day, we had to be there before the day shift began. Given that the ship apparently left LA on time the day before, and the weather was perfect, there’s every reason to think that the reason it didn’t arrive on schedule was that the bosses (at Zim, SSA, or higher up?) held it up in the hope that we would not be able to sustain the picket into the second shift, and they’d be able to pretend we had had no effect.
Great work, Henry!!
This is a terrific victory. There may need to be a follow up to see if the owner of the Israeli ship pays in full. In New York the costs of docking are such that ships leave with cargo because the costs of unloading it grow over time. The ship’s owner should not be allowed to skip out on what the Oakland port operator charges for late stay overs. I would be most surprised that a 24 hour delay would not cost something. Maybe the port operator will exempt this ship for the sick of downtrodden Israel.
Meanwhile, Congress goes the other way. Pro-Israel letter unites Senate Democrats, Republicans:
It would be interesting to know who the 15 were who did not sign.
This is very good news; especially if it gets wide publicity in the US and Israel. But couldn’t you have got some paint guns and a couple of helicopters?
What do you know, the Oakland boycott action seems to have made it to a daily in Turkey:
link to milliyet.com.tr