(ILA members, see notes at end.)

AUD's Matt Noyes, Marsha Niemeijer of Labor Notes, and David Pratt of the Teamster Rank and File Education and Legal Defense Foundation, traveled to Charleston SC in early February where they facilitated a workshop for the Longshore Workers Coalition (LWC), the reform group in the International Longshoremen's Association.

It was a busy weekend for Charleston longshore workers. In addition to the LWC meeting, there was the dedication of a new Local 1422 union hall, a victory celebration for the Charleston Five, and, the following week, a meeting of the International Dockworkers Council.

The workshop, on running for delegate to the ILA South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District convention, was part of AUD's new Longshore Workers Democracy Project, a special project for ILA members. ILA members and officers studied legal rights and organizing strategies for winning delegate races as part of a larger project of bringing democracy to their union.

At the Charleston Five celebration, ILA president John Bowers pledged to turn over to Local 1422 the $75,000 raised by the International union's Charleston Five defense fund. According to Bowers, ILA attorneys had said it was illegal for the ILA to use union funds to support the defense campaign. After Bowers, ILWU president James Spinosa, accompanied by several ILWU officers and members, presented Local 1422 president Ken Riley with a check for $167,000, the second such donation made by the ILWU to support the Charleston Five.

In another show of solidarity, Julian Garcia, Spanish longshore union leader and chair of the International Dockworkers Council (IDC), presented Ken Riley a copy of a letter the Spanish union had delivered to shipping company Nordana, refusing to unload non-union freight from Charleston. The IDC is a growing organization of dockworkers unions that split from the International Federation of Transport Workers' own dockworkers committee. The ITF dockworkers committee is chaired by ILA president John Bowers.

Attention Longshore Workers:
AUD's Longshore Workers Democracy Project provides workshops and educational materials on organizing and legal rights for members of the ILA. We work with ILA members to help workers learn the organizing skills they need to build a stronger, more democratic union. We will travel to your location, and can conduct workshops in English, Spanish or French.