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Longshoremen stand at the nexus of the global economy, handling
nearly every cargo container that enters or leaves any country.
Even in the face of cargo acontainerizationa in the 70s and 80s, a
development that decimated longshore unions, they have managed to
win contracts that provide health benefits and high wages.
On the Global Waterfront tells the story of how longshoremen in
South Carolina confronted attempts to wipe out the stateas most
powerful black organization. When a Danish shipping company began
to shift their transportation to a nonunion firm in 1999, Local
1422 in Charleston, South Carolina, mobilized to protect their
hard-won rights. What followed culminated in a protest in which 660
riot police were deployed against fifty dockworkers, a group that
grew to 150 before the night was over. Four black and one white
longshoreman -- subsequently known as the Charleston 5 -- were held
for twenty months under house arrest on trumped-up felony charges
of inciting a riot.
Within the politically conservative, racially charged, and
intensely religious climate of the South, the unassuming local
union president, Ken Riley -- supported behind the scenes by a
militant AFL-CIO staffer -- crafted an international, grassroots
campaign in defense of the arrested longshoremen. From Australia to
Europe to Korea to the entire west coast of the United States,
longshoremen threatened to shut down ports jeopardizing billions of
dollars in trade per day. Their ultimate success vaulted Riley, and
his reform-minded coworkers, to higher leadership in a notoriously
corrupt union, and laid the foundation for successful rebuffs in
ports around the world. On the GlobalWaterfront explores in detail
a local conflict and in the process exposes the powers that rule
the United States and the global economy. This compelling narrative
of a local struggle, a transformed union leader, and a newly
energized international worker movement highlights the resounding
importance of the international labor movement that is not only
still vital, but still capable of stopping global commerce on a
dime.
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