Occupy Port Shutdown Round-up

The establishment on the West Coast port shutdown of Dec 12th, the second such shutdown:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/us/occupy-oakland-angers-labor-leaders.html

The most inflammatory stuff was saved for the international press:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/10/occupy-shutdown-west-coast-ports

Labor Notes' take:
http://labornotes.org/2011/12/west-coast-port-shutdown-sparks-heated-debate-between-unions-occupy

more opinions after the jump

owen paine says it "deserves a real bout of chin scratching":
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2011/12/deserves_a_real_bout_of_chin_s.html

the story is complex that's clear enough and in general the possible uses of outside actors
as effective union proxy is also clear:
" An independently organized action could allow the ILWU to circumvent the legal minefield set in frontof its own membership"
but
obviously these collisions among the "people" should be avoided if possible and in this case
i'm not sure the action was so urgent it needed to come quickly......
as onne old hand is quoted saying " previous shutdowns took months to prepare....

and elicits an educated comment:

For the record, as a participant in organizing and having dealt with many members of the union, I'd like to say that the union leadership itself was angry that they were not consulted first before the call for a west coast port blockade was called. The rank-and-file were ambivalent about not being consulted, but ultimately worked side-by-side with us to make the action work, and steadfastly said that no matter the way in which the action was decided, they would respect community picket lines.
This action was called both as a response to the police crackdown on the encampments as well as in solidarity with Port truckers in Oakland and Los Angeles as well as the struggles that the ILWU have had in Longview, Washington with EGT. Criag Merrilees, who claimed to be a spokesman of the union, is not a representative of member of the ILWU but is a staffer for the International. He was one of the worst offenders when it came to red-baiting Occupy Oakland as being out of touch with the community as well as the rank-and-file he claimed to represent, insinuating numerous times that anarchist fringe elements had called the action without talking to many other Occupiers and basically saying that this was something that the Union did not support.
As was explained to me by a longshoreman that day, technically, the union never took a vote on whether or not to support the action, so Merrilees had no business saying that the union did NOT support the action; rather, they were neutral and had not come to a decision on the issue.
As a frequent reader of all of the bloggers who commented here, I felt I had to try and give some background to this whole thing. hopefully I'll have more time in the future to interact more, but Occupy Oakland has in many ways Occupied my life.
A very good review of the action can be found at this blog from a participant: http://hyphenatedrepublic.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/west-coast-port-shutdown-oakland-part-2-occupy-oaklands-unstoppable-revolution/
And a radio Interview I was a part of highlights many of the things I talked about earlier:
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/75837

Posted by Leo

 His two links are worth checking out, too...