Responding to a call by Occupy Oakland to hold a general strike on November, 2 West Coast longshore unions will attempt to shut down ports in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay area and will ask other unions to close ports up and down the Pacific. Unconfirmed reports indicate the SEIU with 50,000 members will also participate in a general strike on Tuesday, however labor reporter Mike Elk tweets “hearing that SEIU Local 1021 might be in support of #occupyoakland, but more ambivalent on general strike.”
Will Coos County unions heed the call and strike on Tuesday in solidarity? We can hope and support them if they do.
UPDATE Mike Elk reports on the legal implications of labor union sanctioned general strikes.
My understanding is this is a rank-and-file lead effort. The union leadership appears to be in support of a General Strike but the union is not “officially” endorsing it because of legal concerns. Compare these statements with the statements here ( http://www.occupyoakland.org/2011/10/occupy-oakland-general-strike-press-conference/ ):
“The International Longshore and Warehouse Union local units, which do most of the work at the port, expressed support for the Occupy protest while noting they haven’t authorized a strike. But if enough protesters gather outside the port, union workers could deem it a community picket line and refuse to cross it for their 7 p.m. shift, one spokesman said.
“There have been seven community picket lines honored by our workers since 1985, the most recent one being last year,” said Stan Woods, spokesman for the ILWU. “But it has to be a serious picket line with a serious number of people with goals that don’t conflict with labor.”