SAN FRANCISCO, CA (5/1/21) -- After Angela Davis spoke to the rally at the end of San Francisco's May Day march, Trent Willis, president of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, went back to the microphone. " I'm going to ask the union for a resolution," he announced, "to make our sister Angela Davis an honorary member, as we did with Martin Luther King and Paul Robeson." The crowd cheered - some older longshore workers in their white caps began shouting out, "Free Angela!" - the chant that swept the world during her 1972 trial.
Willis recalled the union's long history of honoring Black radical leaders, even as a conservative and racist establishment was hounding them. Robeson was denied his passport and demonized for refusing to knuckle under to McCarthyism's witch-hunts at the height of the Cold War. Dr. King spoke to the union in 1967 in the last year of his life, calling for radical social change and an end to the Vietnam War. The New York Times condemned him for it, but King told longshore workers in the Local 10 hall, "We've learned from labor the meaning of power."
As Angela Davis walked up Market Street, flanked by the Local 10 drill team, the union's officers and a thousand other union and worker activists, she honored the ILWU's political independence. She called it one of the most radical unions in the country. "Local 10 is a majority African-American union, and it's been committed to the support of workers in South Africa, Chile and now Palestine," she explained in an interview with The Dispatcher. She recalled the years when then-Governor Ronald Reagan had her fired from her teaching job, and tried to send her to prison. "When I was on trial," she remembered, "the ILWU came to my support too."
Part of Local 10's radicalism has been its celebration of May Day. "Back in 2005," Willis told marchers, "we decided we had to pay attention to May Day and what it means. Back in Chicago, when May Day began, they were working people to death. People died so that we can have the 8-hour day. Today if you look at the port, you'll see that no cranes are moving. "
Willis referred to the origin of the holiday that honors the strike in 1886 over the 8-hour demand, and the execution of the Haymarket martyrs that followed - immigrant labor activists framed by the bosses of the era to try to stop the workers' movement. One consequence of McCarthyism was the suppression of May Day. For decades it was celebrated in every country except this one, where it was called the communist holiday.
Redbaiting May Day was never accepted in the ILWU, however. The union's longshore and warehouse workers often led marches and demonstrations, and found ways to celebrate it. In 1950, at the height of McCarthyite hysteria, while the government was trying to deport Harry Bridges, Pacific coast maritime workers, including longshore workers from Locals 10, 13 and 2, sent May Day greetings to union brothers and sisters worldwide. Quoted in The Dispatcher, they said fascism could be defeated "only through militant action, greater maritime unity and world solidarity."
In 1960 the ILWU sent members to the German Democratic Republic (east Germany) to celebrate May Day, and in 1975 Harry Bridges was a guest of the Sea and River Workers Union at May Day in Moscow. The ILWU in Vancouver has a long tradition of participating in May Day events, and in 1981 the ILWU international convention, taking place on the holiday, stood in silence to honor the Haymarket martyrs.
That tradition of solidarity continued in 2008 when Local 10 members marched in the Port of Oakland and stopped work to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "May Day, with its special overtones of struggle and militancy, was intentionally selected," according to ILWU historian Harvey Schwartz. The union had earlier been host to Iraqi unionists asking for support, and sent Local 10's past-President Clarence Thomas to Baghdad to develop relations with them.
What made the 2021 May Day march exceptional, however, was the commitment of other unions and worker organizations. This year contingents of union workers marched behind banners, and their numbers stretched for blocks down Market Street. Other contingents came from the Chinese Progressive Association and the California Domestic Workers Alliance. Chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America showed up in red t-shirts.
Marching in organized union contingents was a nod to the 1934 waterfront and general strike, when thousands of union members paraded silently up Market Street to honor Nick Bordoise and Howard Sperry, murdered by police. Police murders were on the minds of this year's marchers, as it took place just days after a Minneapolis jury found policeman Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd.
"This is more than just another May Day," Willis said. "This year has been filled with racial tension and police shootings. Even after that verdict, police shot another young Black man. Our slogan is An Injury to One is an Injury to All, and we have certainly suffered a lot of injuries."
Willis called on unions and workers to act: "Racism has been in the way of the labor movement since it started. Corporate bosses need it to keep me from talking to an Asian man or a Mexican woman, or to you." Marchers carried banners and Davis and Willis both called for freeing Black prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal.
Many ILWU members came to march from locals throughout Northern California. One, Blake Dahlstrom, was a leader of the successful organizing drive by ILWU Local 6 at the Anchor Steam Beer brewery. Today she serves as a union steward, and member of the its executive board. The fight for the 8-hour day isn't just in the past, she warned. "Many workers have to work a lot more than eight hours at two and more jobs to survive. In San Francisco one job should be enough, but we know it isn't, and that's a big reason we're marching today," she said.
The marchers without exception called on Congress to pass the PRO Act, a labor law reform bill that would penalize corporations for violating the right of workers to organize unions. AFL-CIO Vice President Tefere Gebre told marchers at the rally that current labor law does not protect workers from retaliation, or punish employers who retaliate. "With the PRO Act, there will be consequences," he promised.
Gebre, an Ethiopian immigrant, congratulated marchers for being willing to take action despite the pandemic, while being careful to maintain social distance and wear masks. "COVID-19 has exposed the structural and systemic racism in this country," he charged. Another speaker at the rally, Eddie Zheng, told of his years in state prison, where the prisoners themselves provide the unpaid labor that keeps the institutions going. "The labor movement needs to stop this," he urged.
Along with other speakers, Angela Davis also called for passing the PRO Act: "We need to protect the right to organize." Like Dr. King, she and Zheng connected the fight for prison reform with the demands of unions and workers for a more just society. "We have to stand up with our sisters and brothers behind prison walls, and abolish the prison industrial complex," she urged. "I look forward to a world where the police are no longer necessary, and for that world we need housing, schools, jobs and free health care for all."
Photoessay in The Progressive: Workers Unite for May Day March https://progressive.org/dispatches/workers-unite-for-may-day-march-bacon-210503/ Online Interviews and Presentations
Exploitation or Dignity - What Future for Farmworkers UCLA Latin American Institute Based on a new report by the Oakland Institute, journalist and photographer David Bacon documents the systematic abuse of workers in the H-2A program and its impact on the resident farmworker communities, confronted with a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKa2lHJXMs
There's More Work to be Done Housing Assistance Council and National Endowment for the Arts This exhibition documents the work and impact of the struggle for equitable and affordable housing in rural America, inspired by the work of George “Elfie” Ballis. https://www.thereismoreworktobedone.com/david-bacon
VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION - IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH History Museum of Tijuana RECORRIDO VIRTUAL DE LA EXPOSICIÓN - EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE Museo de Historia de Tijuana https://www.facebook.com/542258639265202/videos/659536991515786 The exhibitions in the following list were scheduled before the current COVID-19 crisis. Public gatherings are now being rescheduled.
IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH / EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021 Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock
MORE THAN A WALL - THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF THE BORDER Spring, 2022 San Francisco Public Library
DEPORTATIONS Rescheduled for a date when the gallery reopens Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago
In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte Photographs and text by David Bacon University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte 302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9” paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)
order the book on the UC Press website: ucpress.edu/9780520296077 use source code 16M4197 at checkout, receive a 30% discount
Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008) Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008 http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx
