By Tim Wheeler

People's Weekly World

www.pww.org

In an angry joint statement June 5, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and NAACP Board Chairman Julian Bond demanded freedom for the "Charleston Five," dockworkers facing jail sentences on trumped up "riot and conspiracy" charges in South Carolina.

The case stems from a brutal unprovoked assault Jan. 20, 2000 by 600 state and local police, some in armored personnel carriers, on peacefully picketing South Carolina longshoremen.

Sweeney and Bond made their call as thousands of trade unionists and civil rights activists were travelling by chartered bus, van and airplane from across the nation for a noon rally at the South Carolina Statehouse June 9 to demand a halt to the state's witchhunt and to call for freedom for the Charleston Five.

The two leaders were responding to a venomous statement by South Carolina's Attorney General Charlie Condon, a close associate of the Bush administration, in which he vowed to "prosecute these cases fully and vigorously" next month despite a growing chorus of demands that the charges be dropped.

In the course of his statement, Condon resorted to crude attacks on the South Carolina Progressive Network, which has spearheaded the longshoremen's defense.

"South Carolina is a strong 'right-to-work state," said Condon referring to the state's union-busting statute. "The disruptive efforts of the Progressive Network and its comrades are designed solely to divert attention from the very serious charges of riot and conspiracy to riot charges against these five defendants."

Sweeney and Bond responded, "We are speaking on behalf of the 40 million men, women and children living in union households and NAACP members nationwide. We are appalled at the harsh tenor of Charles Condon's recent remarks regarding the Charleston Five. By using codewords like 'sympathizers' and 'comrades,' Condon is engaging in the lowest form of race-mongering and union-bashing.

"It is called red-baiting and it calls to mind the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 'The labor-hater and the labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.'"

Sweeney and Bond pointed out that it is more than one year since "riot" charges were levelled against the Charleston Five for peacefully picketing Nordana Shipping Company's use of non-union labor to unload its ship at the Port of Charleston. Nordana had used union workers from Local 1422 and Local 1771 of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) for 23 years. Following the brutal police assault, Nordana relented and agreed to honor its contracts with the ILA.

A judge threw out the charges against the Charleston Five, who include Kenneth Jefferson, 42; Elijah Ford Jr., 40; Peter Washington Jr., 48; Rick Simmons, 38; and John Edgerton, 23. But Condon, a member of George Bush's transition team who helped select John Ashcroft as U.S. Attorney General, is such a fanatic labor-hater that he empaneled a grand jury and succeeded in convincing them to hand down indictments. Since then, they have been under house arrest, forbidden to leave their homes except to go to and from work. All but one of the defendants is Black, reminiscent of the use of house arrest by the South African apartheid regime.

Added Sweeney and Bond, "We ask that Attorney General Condon tone down his rhetoric, examine his conscience, and consider the families of these men who are being persecuted. We are at a critical juncture in the history of race relations and workers' rights in the state of South Carolina. We can continue down a path of tension, inequality, and assault on workers' rights or we can choose a path of cooperation, justice and equality. Such a decision, and the future of the Charleston Five, require a dignified discussion and a prudent judgment rather than vitriolic attacks currently being launched by the Attorney General."

At risk in this trial, the statement continued, "are the inalienable rights of every American to speak freely without fear of government censure, the right to join or form a union, and the right to participate in an open and democratic political process. These are at the core of our free society and the American labor and civil rights movement will not rest until justice is served and the Charleston Five are free."

Matt Painter, a press spokesman for the South Carolina AFL-CIO told the World by phone as many as 10,000 union members are coming on dozens of chartered buses from throughout the South as well as from New York City, Detroit, and Washington D.C. A large contingent of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) were flying in from the west coast. Many more are fellow members of the ILA outraged at the attempt by South Carolina's Republican attorney general, to use the Charleston Five frame-up to smash organized labor in South Carolina and promote his ultra-right political career.

"This case dramatizes the struggle of all workers in South Carolina," Painter said. "We have an anti-living wage bill in the legislature, here, prohibiting any city from passing a bill with a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum. We have legislation to prevent union members from serving on state boards. (It is named the 'Ken Riley' bill after the president of ILA Local 1422 who had been appointed to Charleston Port Authority by South Carolina's Democratic governor). There is also legislation to strengthen South Carolina's 'Right-to-Work' (for less) law. These bills show why it is so important to free the Charleston Five."