The initiators of this conference, San Francisco ILWU Longshore Local 10 and Ship Clerks’ Local 34, have carried on the militant tradition of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union since the Big Strike of 1934 that stopped all shipping on the West Coast and forged the modern industrial trade union movement. Together the two locals have organized solidarity actions in defense of workers’ struggles and against oppression.

* refused to load military cargo to dictatorships in Chile and El Salvador

* refused to unload cargo from apartheid South Africa

* honored “illegal” picket lines supporting dockers’ struggles in Liverpool   and Australia

* shut down all West Coast ports demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, black  political prisoner on Pennsylvania's death row

* honored antiwar port protest picket lines since the start of the Iraq War


It is our intent that this conference will spark workers to take the antiwar struggle beyond street protests to industrial actions, including strikes. The independent actions at the start of the war by railroad workers in Scotland, Italy and Japan were exemplary, but they lacked leadership and coordination amongst other sectors of the transport industry.