Striking Terror

US wharfies could face the death penalty for strikes

The USA has used the war against terrorism to undermine civil and workers' rights. The ILWU is now fighting a renewed attempt to make industrial action equal terrorism. Despite union intervention new laws introduced in the US last year have led to hundreds of workers losing their jobs. Rob Remar, ILWU reports:

The ILWU and organised labour has been pressing for real security, not phoney security. Phoney security is identifying the entire American workforce as potential terrorists and treating them likewise.

There is a huge, huge risk that economic action, collective concerted action such as strikes, slow-downs, work by rules, safety programs, may be coming to the point where they're outlawed.

The law says people can be disqualified for engaging in a severe transportation security incident which is defined as "An incident resulting in a significant loss of life, environmental damage, transportation system disruption, or economic disruption". So they're now identifying for security purposes any kind of economic disruption to the transportation system of the nation and the world. The proposed bill reads:

"Maritime commerce is the lifeblood of the modern US trade-based economy touching virtually every sector of our daily business and personal activities. The macroeconomic effects of the recent shutdown of the West Coast ports, while not in response to a security threat, are a good example of the economic costs that we could experience when a threat would necessitate broad based port closures."

Here's the zinger. Here's their closure on why they are bringing up a labour dispute with regard to national security and anti terrorism measures. They close this by saying:

"Regardless, the economic hardship suffered by industry, labour and the loss of public welfare due to a sustained nationwide port shutdown may have as significant an effect on the US as the act of terror itself."

I just want to repeat that concept because it's like a mathematical formula here. The idea is that an economic shutdown or disruption has the same effect as an act of terrorism. The law doesn't specifically nail this down but it's chilling, chilling stuff here. It could get worse. There's a piece of this legislation that had all sorts of criminal provisions in it, that made it a crime to engage in acts of terrorism and disruption of any part of the transportation system. It punished offenders by life in prison and the death penalty.

We fought like hell to get that out and we succeeded, but like monsters always tend to do, it's been resurrected. It's coming back.