The 1984 Anti-Apartheid Longshore Boycott

Speakers:

Jack Heyman, boycott support organizer, later ILWU Local 10 Exec. Board member (retired)

Howard Keylor, co-leader of boycott, longtime ILWU Local 10 Exec. Board member (retired)

For eleven days in November-December 1984, a ship full of cargo from South Africa sat and rusted in San Francisco harbor as 300 longshoremen refused to touch the apartheid freight on board.

This dramatic act of militant labor solidarity by members of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) with the embattled black masses of South Africa sent a powerful message that reverberated world-wide. The longshore action was actively supported throughout by hundreds who rallied at the gates of Pier 80 to show their solidarity.

The 1984 Bay Area boycott originated with a motion put forward at a Local 10 Executive Board meeting by International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) supporter Howard Keylor. Jack Heyman, who later became a leading militant in Local 10, played an important role in organizing support for the unionists.

The success of the 1984 anti-apartheid boycott helped lay the basis for subsequent political labor actions such as:

– The 1986 community-labor blockade of the Nedlloyd Kembla at Pier 80 by the Campaign Against Apartheid and the IBT

– The 1999 shutdown of all ports on the U.S. West Coast in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal

– The 2008 one-day West Coast strike against the occupation of Iraq

– The 2010 Bay Area port shutdown to protest the murder of Oscar Grant by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle

– Occupy Oakland’s November 2011 “General Strike” and the December 2011 Port Shutdown

– The recent blockades of Israeli ZIM Line vessels in defense of the Palestinian people by Block the Boat and the Stop ZIM Action Committee

Come celebrate and learn about how this historic political strike was organized from two ILWU militants who played instrumental roles in an action which Nelson Mandela hailed as having “established [the ILWU] as the frontline of the anti-apartheid movement.”

Organized by the International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT)

For more information:
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