Charleston5

Photo Mic Smith/The Post and Courier

"I could hear the clacking and firing of guns and helicopters - there were bright lights in my face. I've never been to war but I know what it's like now." - Ken Riley

It was 9/11, the night the planes flew into the World Trade Centre in New York. Ken Riley, Charleston president of the local International Longshoreworkers' Association in South Carolina, USA, was studying police videos in preparation for a court case that could see five longshoremen go to prison.

Ken watched the image of the helicopter searchlight beaming down on the protestors.

"That's how they knew it was me!" he said, pointing. "That light was on me."

Now Ken released it was no accident when he took a whack to the head that required 12 stitches that night.

Ken Riley represents 600 permanent and 400 casual workers in Charleston's ILA Local 1422. Almost all are black. On the night of January 19, 2000 the longshore workers were protesting a scab job on the wharves. Police outnumbered the 300-600 protestors and things turned ugly.

On the Global Waterfront: the Fight to Free the Charleston 5 by Suzan Erem and E. Paul Durrenberger tells Ken's story:

"At the time Riley had never seen what hit him. Dazed he reached up to feel his forehead through his cap. There was a dent. He pulled off his hat and felt blood pouring into his eyes. His head was ringing as he wiped blood out of his eyes."

"I could hear the clacking and firing of guns and helicopters - there were bright lights in my face. I've never been to war but I know what it's like now," he said.

Ken put the next video in the player to see how the confrontation unfolded after he had been taken to hospital.

From behind the police line at the railroad tracks, longshoremen threw rocks at a light trying to take it out. But when police threw tear gas canisters back the protestors retreated.

The street was clear. The longshoremen had slowed down to mingle and talk near the union hall back from the wharves.

But the police regrouped and came after them.

"Sparks flew. Smoke filled the air. Flares hit the ground. In the distance, longshoremen fell, got up and fell again. Then the entire police line marched in quickstep... More shots rang out."

The protestors turned around with their palms up.

"Checker Joe McPherson stood closest to the police line, facing it from only five feet away as it approached. A trooper lifted his rifle and shot him in the leg at such close range that his feet whipped out from under him, sending him airborne and then slamming him onto his back. Somewhere in the dark chaos another three longshoremen were arrested.

"A helicopter hovered overhead, its rotors beating the clouds of smoke and tear gas, the fiery flares burning in the middle of the road and the dim light reflecting off gun barrels and riot shields."

As Ken pulled the video out the TV set returned to broadcast the World Trade Centre tower in flames.

On the Global Waterfront reads like a thriller in an industrial setting.

Like the Patrick Dispute, the Charleston 5 is as much a story about political conspiracy as it is about a labour dispute. And like Patrick it is also a story of how labour solidarity, nationally and globally can ensure workers beat the odds.

Set in America's Deep South it also is story of race and labour relations.

"To be black AND a union member in South Carolina facing a sea of well-armed, exhausted, law enforcement officers from multiple units across the state, police primed for 'battle' was a very dangerous thing. People knew all too well how such confrontations had played out in the past."

In 1968, the year Martin Luther King was assassinated while leading a general strike in Memphis (see box) police killed three demonstrators at South Carolina State University and wounded 27.

In 1969, the National Guard was brought in against black hospital workers in Charleston. And in 1979 the Klu Klux Clan killed five marchers trying to organise textile workers in North Carolina.

The 2000 "Riot on the Waterfront", as it was depicted in the local media, had its roots in American history of slavery and racism.

Charleston still flew the Confederate flag dating back to America's Civil War, representing the old southern conservative values. Forty per cent of the American slave trade had come through the Port of Charleston and the first shot of the Civil War rang out from its fort.

Race and class

The Charleston union was built by former slaves and their children over 150 years. The white backlash that followed the "riot" that night was not just about conservative indignation at "wharfies earning $100,000 a year" as Australian dockers experienced in 1998. This was about black workers earning "white wages", when elsewhere they were still largely relegated to non-union jobs on slave wages.

"The union represented much more than the economic future of a thousand black men...The union was a product of a power struggle that black workers had lost more often than they ever had won, and it was a symbol that standing together and taking risks, getting beaten down but standing back up can make life better for regular guys on the street and their families. The union was bigger than any one fight with an employer. The union was hope, and Ken Riley couldn't let that hope die."

The players

The main players in the Charleston dispute were Nordana, a small family-owned shipping line based in Denmark intent on breaking the union and bringing in cheap non-union labour to stevedore its cargo; Charleston Attorney General Charles Condon, a fundamentalist Christian and Confederate who also ran the local Bush campaign during the presidential elections; local businessman Perry Collins who was looking to create a non-union container stevedoring business; Spanish unionist and International Dockers' Council member Julian Garcia; the Charleston 5 - put under house arrest and night curfew for 22 months, while facing prison sentences of between five and 10 years - and Ken Riley.

Other players included Jim Spinosa, Bib Bob McEllrath, Ray Familithe and other officers members of the International Longshore Workers' Union on the West Coast including Jack Heyman, who raised the first financial, moral and international support for the Charleston 5 and Paddy Crumlin, National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia and an executive board member of the International Transport Workers' Federation. The ITF and the International Dockworkers' Committee (IDC) played a key role in building industrial and public pressure.

"We've got to support the Charleston 5," Paddy Crumlin said at the time. "We didn't do enough for Liverpool and dockworkers internationally have been paying the price ever since. The dispute confirmed the MUA's view about developing a more militant and integrated international dockworkers' movement."

Global picket

The first chapter in the Charleston 5 dispute was the battle to stop the non-union operation. Charleston longshore workers had been picketing the ship for some months before the confrontation that January. Now the struggle would move offshore.

International action, by both the International Transport Workers' Federation and the fledging International Dockers' Council that arose from the ashes of the Liverpool dockers' dispute, saw the company capitulate.

But that did not take care of South Carolina attorney general Charlie Condon. Even when Nordana dropped all court action and the local magistrate dismissed all charges, Condon concocted felony charges of 'inciting riot' to take the case to the state court.

He won grand jury indictments against the Charleston 5 - Ricky Simmons, Elijah Ford, Ken Jefferson, Jason Edgerton and Peter Washington. Condon, who endorsed the 'electric sofa' and wanted the death penalty speeded up, also hired Walter Bailey, a solicitor with a reputation of putting people on death row in South Carolina. At the same time he attempted to introduce more draconian anti-union laws in the state parliament.

Ken travelled the country and the world to get financial, moral and industrial support for the Charleston 5. By the time the court case came around he had backing of the US federation of unions AFL-CIO, the ITF and the IDC. On the day of the hearing the courtroom could not accommodate the 1500-2000 supporters. Speakers were hooked up to a circus tent outside for the crowd to hear the verdict. All felony charges against the five were dropped.

As with the Liverpool dockers, the Charleston 5 very nearly came unstuck due to union division. However it has been an important component in realising a stronger and more unified ILA, bringing the ILA and the ILWU more closely together in North America and establishing effective dialogue between the ITF and the IDC.

Ken Riley was in Sydney, Australia during National Conference in April for a special launch of his book. Members can purchase copies of On the Global Waterfront: the Fight to Free the Charleston 5 from their local branch.

A video of the night police declared war on black longshore workers can be downloaded at

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3630782398230140343