Unions unanimously pass resolution; download it at this link.
LONGVIEW, WA — Union delegates representing a broad swath of public and private sector workers in 30 local unions across Cowlitz and Wahkiakum Counties unanimously passed a resolution denouncing recent arrests and prosecutions of longshore workers and supporters, citing the prosecution’s failure to produce evidence and the enormous costs to local taxpayers. The vote took place after extensive discussion at the regularly scheduled meeting at the Cowlitz-Wahkiahkum Central Labor Council.
“Members and supporters of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, when exercising their rights to free speech and assembly in the course of collective bargaining negotiations, took care to exercise such rights out of the public right-of-way so as to send a message to a private, for-profit enterprise without disrupting their fellow citizens,” the resolution reads. “Longshore workers and their supporters have been systematically denied equal protection under the law by law enforcement and a county prosecutor who have admitted in written documents to treating ILWU-related arrests differently from standard procedures… The prosecutor’s office has demanded that dozens of workers be arrested without cause or sufficient evidence and forced them to prepare a legal defense, only to drop charges on the eve of scheduled trials, resulting in enormous and unjust expenses to innocent citizens, their families and local taxpayers.”
Kyle Mackey, Vice President of the Cowlitz-Wahkiahkum Central Labor Council and an ILWU Local 21 member, said, “Local 21 members have seen plenty of evidence pointing to bias over the past few months, and to have the rest of labor acknowledge it is reassuring. People have been telling us for months that they are tired of the County wasting money dragging workers through the system for exercising their free speech rights.”
The resolution calls, among other things, for “local, county and state elected officials to show leadership and help the community heal by putting an immediate end to prosecutions of workers and their supporters who exercised their free speech and assembly rights in the course of a labor dispute that has ended without any personal injuries or disruption to any public right-of-way.”
ILWU Coast Longshore Division News release