Progress Now Action

I seen this posted to other list serves on the longshore union staging a strike to shut down west coast ports.

However the media has not covered this important new alliance by unions with the anti-war movement in America.  This adds a powerful force to the anti-war movement.  The only newspaper that has covered the event from the anti-war reason for the work stoppage is the Seattle Post Intelligencer but only in the business section via Alex Veiga, AP business writer, reports:

LOS ANGELES -- West Coast cargo traffic came to a halt Thursday as port workers staged daylong anti-war protests to commemorate May Day, terminal operators said Thursday.

Thousands of dockworkers did not show up for the morning shift, leaving ships and truck drivers idle at ports from Long Beach to Seattle, Pacific Maritime Association spokesman Steve Getzug said.

This is how the DenverPost.com has edited the May Day strike by the ILWU:

SAN FRANCISCO, May 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Longshore and Warehouse Union today struck West Coast ports from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest, bringing cargo operations to a virtual standstill, as the Union's leadership defied orders from the independent Coast Arbitrator to "notify its Locals and members of its contractual obligation and direct all members to report to work as they normally do during the day shift on May 1, 2008."

The Denver Post has done a disservice to its readership by leading with a plain Jane headline "Longshore Union Strikes West Coast Ports" that is followed by a misleading opening paragraph.  One reads the corporate view until the fifth paragraph:

Today's action, which essentially shut down all major ports along the coast, culminates a series of events that began when ILWU members passed a resolution opposing the U.S. war in Iraq. After seeking permission under contract rules to stop work during the day shift on May 1st, ILWU leaders later retracted their request, and claimed that any decision not to work on May 1st would be made by individual workers.

The reportage is muddy for the reader to see a clear connection between the union action and the anti-war movement.  The impression is that the union is using the anti-war movement as a bargaining chip in typical labor-management negotiations.  Go to the ILWU website and read their statement for May Day.

A quick search of the Rocky Mountain News website shows nothing.  No mention at all using the search terms "West Coast Strike" and "ILWU".

So the Denver Post posits an anti-union spin by the management (the strike is for ulterior motives) that drives a wedge between the union and the anti-war movement.

The Rocky Mountain News leaves it readership in the dark about an important step in bringing unions into the antii-war movement.

Why don't you write a letter to the Rocky Mountain News?