7435 Michigan Ave., Detroit, Michigan 48210 www.labornotes.org   #273 December 2001

The Charleston 5-Victory!

Five dock workers in Charleston, South Carolina are celebrating the end of a long ordeal. Facing the possibility of five-year prison terms, the 5 agreed to plead no contest to a magistrate-level offense. They will pay $100 fines to settle the case.

The Charleston 5 are members of Longshoremen's Local 1422 in South Carolina. They were charged with conspiracy to riot in connection with a January 2000 picket-line incident in which union members were vastly outnumbered by riot police. The 5 were under 7pm-7am house arrest, and were set to come to trial November 14.

Ever since state Attorney General Charlie Condon bowed out of the case a few weeks before, hopes had been high that a negotiated settlement could be reached.

AFFRAY
The statute under which the 5 are pleading uses the language "riot, rout or affray," said Ken Riley, president of Local 1422. "We're stressing the 'affray.'" The statute also refers to no weapons being used and no wounds inflicted.

"It's a tremendous victory, considering what we were stacked up against," Riley said. "Condon had called for 'jail, jail and more jail.' He even said he wanted these guys to be placed under the jail.

"From that day to this there's been an all-out campaign to counter that type of aggression. We owe the victory to the unrelenting pressure of the movement."

The case was seen as a political attempt to go after a highly visible, militant, African American-led union in a right-to-work state. Dozens of rallies and other events in cities across the country had called for charges to be dropped, as the labor movement took up the cause.

After the victory, Charleston 5 defense committees in some cities turned their actions planned for November 14 into celebrations instead.

-Jane Slaughter