Urgent: Protest Police Violence at Oakland Docks, Urge Investigation

Campaign for Labor Rights recently received this urgent alert from the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights (www.owcinfo.org).

April 8, 2003

UPDATE: Brazil's CUT Federation Protests Oakland Police Violence (April 15, 2003)

To the U.S. and International Trade Union Movement

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

We are writing this letter to ask you to join us in protesting the police violence against a peaceful community picketline at the Port of Oakland the morning of April 7 and in demanding a thorough investigation by the Oakland City Council of this police misconduct.

As you may have read in the media, or in the postings we sent out yesterday afternoon, the Oakland police used brute force to disperse a crowd of more than 500 antiwar activists who had assembled peacefully in front of two shipping companies -- APL and Stevedore Services of America -- to protest their role in the U.S.-led war on Iraq. This was a case of unprovoked violence on the part of the police.

Indeed, the police had assembled in riot gear, even though the protesters -- in all their calls for the action -- had insisted this was to be a peaceful exercise of their First Amendment rights to picket and protest.

The protesters had established a moving, legal picketline. There was no attempt by any workers or any truckers to get through the line. The longshore workers were standing by, waiting for a determination from an arbitrator as to whether it was safe for them to go to work that morning. Such a "health and safety" determination is required under the union contract, as longshore workers in the past have been injured in similar situations.

When the police issued their order for the activists to disperse within three minues to clear the entrances to the terminal, the protesters began to disperse -- as they had pledged to do in advance to avoid any confrontation with the police. Activists on the scene report that the police began shooting their para-military projectiles (wooden bullets, concussion grenades, etc. -- many of them fired directly at the body at close range) 30 seconds after issuing this dispersal order. The universal message from the protesters was that they were not given ample time to disperse. The demonstrators categorically deny the police claim that someone from the crowd had thrown rocks at the police, or that they had refused to disperse.

But not only were the protesters on the picketline shot at. Nine members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union were shot by the police, though they were standing by at a safe distance awaiting a determination from the arbitrator. Five ILWU members had to be taken to the hospital, with one member requiring surgery on his thumb. Many were shot in the back.

Moreover, when a business agent of ILWU Local 10, Jack Heyman, went to the police to inform them that two ILWU members had been shot and that he was going to instruct all ILWU members to leave the area, he was dragged from his car, thrown onto the pavement, handcuffed and then sent to jail, where he remained for 14 hours.

These acts of police misconduct are outrageous and must be condemned as yet another attack on civil liberties and democratic rights. Working people have the right to peaceful assembly and protest, including picketing.

We in the OWC call on the labor movement across the United States and internationally to send statements of protest addressed to Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, calling for a full investigation into this police violence on the Oakland docks.

Please address your letters to:

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown,
1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 3rd. Floor
Oakland, CA 94612

Please fax your letters of protest to ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco, which is gathering these statements and will deliver them directly to the mayor's office. The ILWU Local 10 fax number is (415) 441-0610. You can also email your statements to ILWU Local 10 at <mperez@bayarea.net>. (Please send us a copy of your statements to <ilcinfo@earthlink.net>.)

Please send these statements as soon as possible, as there is great momentum at the moment to compel the Oakland City Council and Mayor's Office to convene such an investigation into this police misconduct.

In solidarity,

Alan Benjamin and Ed Rosario,
Co-coordinators,
Open World Conference Continuations Committee