Police and news helicopters circled overhead as hundreds of union and community supporters converged on the dusty entrance to the Port of Oakland’s Howard Terminal. The gathering occurred on May Day – the traditional workers’ holiday – and attracted supporters from near and far who marched and rallied with the ILWU and a host of maritime unions and business groups who are opposing plans for a baseball stadium and luxury condos on the Terminal’s 55 acres. More than a dozen speakers repeated the same warning to local politicians: “Your plans for luxury condos and baseball stadiums don’t belong on the working waterfront!”
Intensely industrial
While the crowd gathered, noisy container trains rumbled past on their way to and from the docks with union engineers at the controls who blasted their air-horns to show solidarity. A much longer line of diesel trucks waited in each direction, hauling trailers full of scrap and crushed cars down the dusty Embarcadero. They were headed to Schnitzer, one of the nation’s largest recycling and steel companies, with operations in 30 states including California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. Their Oakland facility is bordered by the Howard Terminal that may soon be surrounded by luxury condominiums if the ill-conceived stadium deal goes forward.
Diverse coalition
Local 10 President Melvin Mackay has helped build a coalition to fight the stadium/condo plan that includes some surprising allies, including Schnitzer, the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Ag Transport Coalition, Trucking Associations and Save the Bay.
“We’ve been working with the truckers and all parts of the maritime industry,” said Mackay. “We’ve got to keep what we have at the Port. We have no room to give up, and if we do, you won’t have a job. It’s only a matter of time,” he said.
“If they build condominiums, if they build hotels, you can rest assured that the waterfront in Oakland is gone. Those people don’t want to live next to industrial operations that make noise and dust 24-7, and they’ll demand changes and force out industry to protect their property values,” he said to hundreds at the rally
Flight Attendant support
Mackay introduced the day’s special guest, Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants, the union representing 50,000 workers at 20 airlines. Known as a dynamic speaker, Nelson didn’t disappoint, and she encouraged union members to, “stand up and make your voices heard. There are so many jobs at stake here, good jobs, and the only way to save them is by organizing and fighting for our rights – – which is the only way that working people have ever made progress,” she said.
Support from teachers
Many teachers attended the event from both Oakland and San Francisco. Susan Solomon, President of the United Educators of San Francisco, drew the connection between good schools and good jobs, explaining:
“We can’t live in a society without good jobs for kids, no matter how hard they and their teachers want everyone succeed in school.”
Solomon noted that the main mover behind the stadium deal is Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher – who made his fortune the old-fashioned way – by inheriting it from his father who owned the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic stores. The Fisher family has billions in assets and is a top donor to anti-union political candidates and causes, including charter schools and other efforts to weaken teacher unions.
ILWU International Secretary-Treasurer Ed Ferris, a member and former President of Local 10, told the rally that keeping the baseball stadium out of the Port is a lifeand-death decision:
“Our very future survival is at stake. I understand that the Oakland A’s want to have a new stadium and that’s fine. Do it at their existing site. Let’s make sure that the City of Oakland, the Mayor, the Council and everybody understands that this stays a dock, not a stadium.”
Marina Secchitano, President of the Inlandboatmen’s Union, the ILWU’s Marine Division, has been working with Mackay to help organize the local coalition and said, “If we don’t protect our jobs, there aren’t going to be any good paying jobs. We have to come out and we have to fight for them.”
Some supporters at the rally travelled long distances to attend, including Local 13 Vice President Gary Herrera, Local 63-OCU President John Fageaux, and Local 500’s Joulene Parent from ILWU Canada, who attended with her husband Mike from Local 514. Local 13 members Francisco Franco, Monique Anglada, and John Seixas were also in attendance.
Local leaders from the Bay Area included BALMA President Mike Villiggante and Local 34 President Keith Shanklin, Local 10 Vice Robert Bradford and Local 10 Business Agent Trent Willis who served as the MC for the march to City Hall.
The group of new ILWU members who are organizing at the Anchor Brewery were represented by Brace Belden.
Trucking Company owner Randy Garcia of GST Transportation, said the City of Oakland is facing a defining moment: “Is the mayor, the city council and Port Commission going to stand by the men and women of this city and country, or are they going to stand by the rich men of this city and state?”
Local 10 Pensioner Clarence Thomas, who was interviewed at length by Pacifica radio on the morning of the rally, told listeners: “This is a development deal, pure and simple. It involves valuable real estate and luxury condos, which have nothing to do with the kind of affordable housing that Oakland needs. He said that the typical small percentage of “affordable housing” included in most development deals was a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed.
The stadium project got rolling in April of 2018 when the Port and Oakland A’s approved a one-year “Exclusive Negotiating Agreement.”
Stadium moves to next step
Just over a week after the 2019 May Day protest, on May 13, Oakland’s Port Commission voted unanimously to approve an “Exclusive Negotiation Term Sheet” – a deal that allows the Oakland A’s to move forward with planning and preparation to design their project and propose a lease. The project can move forward with environmental impact studies, waivers and permits needed to build the stadium. The City of Oakland will need to re-zone the site for non-industrial and residential use, something that will require jumping through legal hoops with two powerful agencies: the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and State Lands Commission.
On the morning of the May 13 meeting, the community coalition opposing the project and the Oakland A’s held competing events outside the Port Commission offices. The community coalition opposing the stadium held a press conference that featured active and retired waterfront workers dressed in their work vests, hard hats and oil covered overalls.
The Oakland A’s sponsored a pep rally just a hundred yards away with a live music, DJ, free food, and “SWAG” bags. Former Oakland A’s star players Ricky Henderson, Shooty Babitt and Bip Roberts worked the largely affluent crowd who were decked-out in expensive A’s jerseys and baseball hats. An oversized box truck, outfitted with a digital billboard displayed an architectural rendering of the stadium.
Only a small portion of the crowd that morning was allowed into the commission meeting. Most stayed outside and watched the meeting on large-screen TVs set-up outside.
Inside, Port Commissioners showed their bias by giving the A’s time for a fancy PowerPoint presentation of their proposal. Stadium opponents had to present their case as individual speakers, confined to a time-cap of one minute each.
During public comment, Clarence Thomas noted the irony of the stadium’s design that seeks to capitalize on the history of the Oakland’s working waterfront by incorporating two nonworking cranes as “ambience” and “props” while real workers are likely to be displaced in nearby terminals that will inevitably run into trouble with wealthy condo owners nearby who object to the 24-7 operations that involve dust, dirt, noise and bright lights. “We are not props. Longshore workers are vital to the economy of the entire region, but this Port Commission seems willing to sell the ‘goose that lays the golden egg’ in order to make a quick buck,” Thomas said.
Mackay said that the Commission’s decision to move forward with the stadium was a “slap in the face” to port workers and vowed that the fight to protect good jobs will continue.
Holding them accountable: ILWU Local 10 President Melvin Mackay questioned Oakland Port official Mike Zampa about the agency’s commitment to protecting good jobs and industrial zoning. Port Commissioners voted to continue formal planning talks with the Oakland A’s for a new waterfront stadium and condo development. Maritime unions and businesses - along with environmental groups - oppose the plan because it threatens jobs and raises a host of other problems.