From October 1 to the 3, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), a dockworkers’ union covering the U.S.’s East Coast, Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Canada, and the Bahamas, went on strike against the United States Maritime Alliance after negotiations for their master agreement for the ports on the East and Gulf coasts broke down. In the lead up to the strike, the ILA released a statement calling itself the “I Love America union” and emphasizing that the ILA has had a no-strike pledge for military cargo since World War I. This became a point of contention on the Left, with many claiming that this meant the strike was not worth supporting.
Why is the ILA leadership like this? This statement is a result of more than 100 years of ideological struggle in the American labor movement, dating back to the origin of labor unionism in the U.S. and the split between a vision for a narrow, self interested unionism, and a vision for a broad, society-changing unionism.
The Formation of a Radical Labor Movement, and a Conservative ILA
In the late Gilded Age, when the U.S. working class was facing rapidly growing inequality and widespread poverty, labor organizing was the predominant tactic for fighting back. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) emerged as the largest coalition of labor unions by the 1890s, focusing on a craft unionist model of organizing where workers joined unions focused on their particular skill set, rather than across industries. For example, painters joined the painters’ union, rather than one broader construction union. This narrower approach undercut opportunities for solidarity across the working class. The ILA was formed in 1892, and joined the AFL in 1895.
The competing perspective was industrial unionism, which sought to create unions with broader bases, organizing entire shops across trades, and entire industries across employers. This attracted many more left-wing organizers who sought to build working class power to not just bargain for better wages, but build a society that was not completely dominated by the capitalist class, and for socialists, to go beyond and ultimately build a society with democratic control of the economy.
The standard bearer for this vision in the early 1900s was the socialist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union, which organized workers in several strategically important industries, including longshoring. This led to strife with the ILA, especially on the West Coast, but the ILA began to win as the IWW was persecuted by the government in the late 1910s, targeted in large part because of their anti-war organizing during WW1. The ILA presented themselves as a patriotic alternative to win the government’s favor during this period, establishing their no-strike pledge on military cargo, which they have proudly maintained since.
The ILA organized the Maritime Strike of 1934, where they struck every port on the West Coast at once, cementing their power. The strike’s outcomes were mixed, and this led to a greater rift between the more left-wing West Coast locals and the more right-wing national leadership. The right wing of the ILA claimed that it was a loss caused by “communist infiltration,” and the ILA Executive Board appointed a conservative as the head of their Pacific Coast District in 1935. Rebuking national leadership, the Pacific Coast District voted to secede from the ILA and formed the International Longshoremen’s and Warehouseworkers’ Union (ILWU).
In 1935, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed as a committee within the AFL to focus on organizing the “unskilled” industrial working class. The conservative craft unionist leadership of the AFL immediately took an oppositional stance to the CIO, suspending 10 of its unions in 1936. In response, the CIO began to charter its own unions and turned into a rival labor federation formed with a left-wing guiding vision of a labor movement that was politically independent, more inclusive, and cooperative internationally. Many of the constituent unions were led, staffed, or organized by members of socialist organizations like the Communist Party, IWW, and American Workers Party. The ILWU affiliated with the CIO in 1937, and the now more conservative ILA remained part of the AFL.
The CIO spent the years leading up to WW2 organizing massive industrial unions, including big name unions like the United Steelworkers and United Autoworkers. This put the labor movement at a high water mark for membership, militancy, and organization. In 1945, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was formed to promote international cooperation amongst unions, and the CIO immediately joined.
In contrast, the AFL refused to join the WFTU because it contained unions from the USSR. The AFL also had in 1944 formed the unilateral Free Trade Union Committee (FTCU) with the goal of undermining the international left wing labor movement, particularly by supporting anti-communist elements in unions in Western Europe.
During World War II, the labor movement had been constrained domestically by the National War Labor Board, which had brokered a period of labor peace to enable maximum efficiency for the military industrial complex. At the end of the war, with the breakdown of wartime labor peace along with macroeconomic factors like the injection of millions of soldiers back into the labor market and rapid inflation, the U.S. experienced the largest wave of strikes in its history, with over 4 million workers going on strike in 1946, representing nearly 3% of the total population.
The Right Strikes Back
In response to the growing power of the left wing labor movement, the newly ascendant Republicans passed the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 to defang labor unions and root out the Left.
It made political strikes and secondary/sympathy strikes and boycotts illegal, made it illegal for federal employees to strike, created the power for the president to intervene in any strike that threatens “national health or safety” (historically most often used against longshoremen), made it legal for states to pass union-undermining “Right to Work” laws, and required all elected officers of labor unions to sign affidavits swearing that they were not communists.
With the encouragement of the federal government, including numerous summons before the House Un-American Activities Committee for union leaders, staff, and members, unions began to purge the Left from their ranks. In 1949, at the CIO convention, it kicked out several left-wing labor unions, and its major affiliates purged their ranks of left-wing organizers and staff. The CIO and AFL were also founding members of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in 1949, an anti-communist alternative to the WFTU. After the CIO had lost its left-wing character it finally merged back with the AFL in 1955, forming the AFL-CIO.
The AFL-CIO for the rest of the Cold War operated as a subsumed institution to enforce the imperialist and nationalist aims of the capitalist class. In 1961, it created a new version of the FTCU, the American Institute for Free Labor Development, to undermine international left-wing labor unions and to foment strikes against left-wing governments. For the rest of the Cold War until relatively recently, the horizons for the labor movement were limited to a conservative “business unionist” vision that focused on organizing and bargaining over narrow work issues. Abandoning any larger social role, the AFL-CIO and its constituent unions promoted economic nationalism, undermined international labor solidarity, and oftentimes, established internal anti-democratic structures while hemorrhaging membership and losing power.
Workers now face a steep path towards building back a militant and class conscious labor movement. A labor movement that could effectively contest the means of production, challenge the power of the US government and military industrial complex, and stop the flow of weapons to Israel will need levels of power and organization not seen since before the Cold War.
The Strategic and Legal Realities
Most collective bargaining agreements contain “no work stoppage” provisions, meaning unless there is a legally defined unfair labor practice, there cannot be a strike while the agreement is still in effect. Even if the strike were to come at the expiration of a contract, many contracts from the federal government have no work stoppage clauses within, meaning the government can intervene and force the workers back to work. Furthermore, refusing to ship military cargo to Israel would be a political strike, meaning it is illegal anyway.
In practice, during an illegal strike, a union is subject to consequences, most often meaning fines, but also including actions such as the permanent replacement of workers, the jailing of union leaders, and the decertification of the union. Furthermore, the striking workers would be ineligible for unemployment benefits, which are usually critical to maintaining a strike. If a union can still succeed in the face of all of this opposition, it can win its original demands, win its leaders amnesty, and win their jobs back.
Some additional challenges that this hypothetical strike would face include the threat of temporary replacement (scabbing) from dockworkers from other ports, or from the US military’s sealift command, or even the diversion of military cargo through other logistical lines like airlifts. Without true mass popular support for the striking workers, they would be highly unlikely to succeed due to these factors.
To even make this strike a possibility, an organizer must achieve a great amount, with potential challenges including establishing a caucus within the union, passing resolutions and/or winning elections for officer positions at the local, district, or international levels, or alternatively building a rank and file network strong enough to wildcat the strike. They must also ensure that the membership is educated enough to believe in the mission, materially supported enough to be willing to strike, and organized enough to maintain the strike through whatever disruption that the employer and government would respond with. This project would also need external support, directly on the picket lines, materially for the striking workers and their families’ needs, and politically to reduce scabbing and pressure the government and employer to cave.
Put simply, building the organizational infrastructure necessary to carry out this strike would be the most significant act of solidarity to occur in the US in at least the last 75 years. This makes it a prime target for disruption by the Right. On the other hand, this would irrevocably expand what is considered possible by the working class, inspiring millions, and if momentum is built off of it, it could lead to true, comprehensive, and lasting systemic change in the U.S.
Why is refusing solidarity with the ILA strike not solidarity with Palestine?
Stopping the genocide of the Palestinian people is a moral imperative. The U.S. political machine has shown it has no conscience, with both parties willing to enable the genocide. Marching and electoral organizing has yielded little to actually interrupt the Israeli military. A port strike could certainly be an effective tool to do so. It would also be very challenging to start, sustain, and win such a strike.
How would one go about organizing to do so? We cannot expect people to strike for Palestine without asking them to and enabling them to. It will not start with denigrating the workers and proclaiming that they are evil for participating in imperialism. Rather, it will start with the rank and file, from the workers themselves, and from people who can prove themselves to be true, dependable allies with shared aims. Organizing from the bottom, building union democracy, supporting strikers, supporting internal reformers, and getting strategic jobs are the tools for organizers aspiring to change the status quo of imperialist business unionism. In other words, the rank-and-file strategy.
Organizers in other sectors can also fight Zionism through unionism as well. Working to divest their unions’ or their employers’ pension funds or endowments from Israeli securities, to shut down work projects that support Israel, and get their employers to adhere to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction principles are all projects that could significantly contribute to the isolation of Israel and the eventual liberation of Palestine.