With Port Actions, Occupy Oakland Tests Labor Leaders
MALIA WOLLAN and STEVEN GREENHOUSE
December 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/us/occupy-oakland-angers-labor-leaders.html?_r=1&src=rechp

OAKLAND, Calif. -- In most cities, the Occupy movement
has been thrown on the defensive, struggling to regroup
and plan new protests after being evicted from its
encampments by the police.

Not in Oakland.

Long the most militant Occupy branch, Occupy Oakland has
continued to push the movement's campaign against the
wealthiest 1 percent even after losing its perch in
front of City Hall. It spearheaded a one-day action on
Monday in which thousands of protesters rallied at West
Coast ports from San Diego to Anchorage, effectively
closing the Ports of Portland and Longview, Wash., and
largely shutting the Port of Oakland.

In the process, Occupy Oakland has cast itself as the
true champion of America's workers, creating a
potentially troublesome rift with the Occupy movement's
sometime allies in organized labor.

Several labor leaders criticized the plan to disrupt the
ports, which cost many longshoremen and truck drivers a
day's pay. And union officials were irked by Occupy
Oakland's claim that it was advancing the cause of port
workers even though several unions opposed the protests.

For example, several days before the disruptions, Robert
McEllrath, president of the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union, issued a statement warning: "Support is
one thing. Organizing from outside groups attempting to
co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda
is quite another."

Organizers at Occupy Oakland shrugged off the criticism,
saying many union leaders are afraid of bold action. The
Occupy movement, they say, is doing more for working
people than some unions and union leaders are.

"You can't co-opt labor issues if you are in the working
class," said Boots Riley, 40, a rap musician with the
Coup who helped plan the port shutdown. "The organizers
of this movement are the working class, and these are
issues that belong to the working class. No one has a
copyright on working-class struggles."

Occupy Oakland led the push to shut West Coast ports,
holding conference calls two or three times a week with
as many as 40 Occupy protesters in cities from San Diego
to Seattle to plan and coordinate the disruptions.
Occupy Oakland also sent $1,000 each to four other West
Coast Occupy groups to help finance outreach and
organizing for the port shutdowns.

The Oakland protesters also made regular visits to the
longshore union's hiring hall in San Francisco to gather
support from rank-and-file workers. They printed 50,000
fliers about the protest and went to the Oakland port,
one of the nation's busiest, to distribute them and talk
to nonunion truck drivers.

"The Occupy movement is a union for the 99 percent, and
certainly for the 89 percent of working people who are
not in unions," said Barucha Peller, 28, an unemployed
writer who helped plan and rally support for the port
shutdown.

The Occupy strategists said they were carrying on the
struggle of longshore workers at the Longview port, who
have been pressing EGT, a terminal operator, to hire
longshoremen instead of workers from another union. A
court had imposed a strict injunction against illegal
activity by the longshore union after some members had
engaged in violent protests.

But the Occupy planners also knew that they had chosen a
target that was symbolic of multinational corporations,
including the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which owns
a major interest in a company that operates many port
terminals. They also figured that disrupting ports was
relatively easy and likely to bring them lots of
attention.

While the protests drew support from some port workers,
others were dismayed by the disruptions.

"They're taking money out of my pocket," said Lee
Ranaldson, 63, a nonunion trucker from Cleveland who
said he had been blocked from dropping off his cargo of
refrigerated meat for more than 12 hours. "Who are the
leaders of this thing and what do they want?"

Some union leaders noted wryly that the Occupy movement
-- after gratefully accepting major donations of money,
food, sleeping bags and winter clothing from labor
unions -- had repeatedly warned unions not to seek to
co-opt them.

With the port effort, the Occupy movement suddenly
seemed to be engineering protests and work stoppages on
its own, essentially co-opting the unions' cause instead
of working with them.

While praising the Occupy movement's goal of helping the
99 percent, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the
California Nurses Association, faulted the protesters'
tactics, saying, "I don't know how you call a strike
without involving the union or the workers."

But the Occupy activists said unions were too timid
about pushing the interests of workers.

"The 1 percent has been able to write and pass labor
laws that are designed to restrict the amount of action
that can legally be taken by a union. Most union
officials today refuse to challenge those laws," Occupy
organizers wrote on a Web site explaining the port
shutdown. "It is the responsibility of rank-and-file
workers and their allies to escalate the labor struggle.
Occupy can spearhead this movement."

Some Occupy participants and labor experts asserted that
the longshore union, which they said feared endorsing
the protests because of the court injunction and pending
contracts, was not really opposed to the port
disruptions and was happy to see the Occupy protesters
carry on its fight.

"It reminds me of what John L. Lewis, the great mine
workers' leader, did when the mine workers engaged in a
wildcat strike," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor
historian at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. "He'd give a wink and a nod."

Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the longshore union,
denied there was any such tacit approval and said his
union resented the Occupy organizers' assertions that
the union was craven.

"It's silly to lecture the I.L.W.U. about being
overcautious when the members of this union have always
been willing to be courageous and put their bodies on
the line," he said.

Malia Wollan reported from Oakland, and Steven
Greenhouse from New York.

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