Riot-geared police on foot and horseback had massed on Burnside Ave. across from Powell’s City of Books by 4 p.m. May 1. On the other side of the street, striking Powell’s workers held signs high, their picket line slowed by supporters thronging the sidewalk. Handfuls of refugees from the earlier May Day demonstrations showed up, shell-shocked from their tangle with cops downtown. Some joined the Powell’s workers, some stood stranded across the street, held back by the police.

Rain clouds glowered. More police appeared and surrounded the pickets, blocking off every intersection in the area.

“The May Day marchers were having trouble. The police were giving some hot looks, like they wanted to mess with them. They knew they’d be safe with us. We started chanting, ‘Come over, come over,’” said Wendy Brown, who works in Powell’s shipping department.

Then a shout echoed behind the police lines, growing louder and louder.

“I-L-W-U! I-L-W-U!” The police turned to see some 300 chanting ILWU delegates marching from the Convention site 10 blocks away. The cops held their ground, stopping the delegates’ progress across Burnside. ILWU International President Brian McWilliams quickly found the officer in charge. The union had come to support the Powell’s picket line, he calmly explained. The members had no intention of giving up their First Amendment right to do so.

The traffic light changed. McWilliams led the ILWU one step off the curb—and the police line melted back. Picketers surged toward the ILWU marchers and for a few minutes the crowd stopped one of Portland’s busiest intersections. Powell’s workers met their new union brothers and sisters in a tumult of clapping, chanting, high-fives and exultant fists in the air.

“Once the ILWU was here, you knew the cops weren’t going to mess,” Brown said. “You could see the power of the union. I felt like I was getting a small dose of the flavor of Seattle [during the WTO].”

The May Day demonstration set the tone for a week that saw the Powell’s workers strike for two-and-a-half days, appear at the ILWU Convention en masse, rally again with the ILWU—and party with their new family whenever time and energy allowed.

“I think all of us at Local 5 know now what it feels like to be in a union,” City of Books worker Mary Winzig told the Convention. This solidarity will stand the Powell’s workers in good stead. Several days of hard bargaining after the Convention yielded progress, but no deal. No one’s betting on a quick signing.

At the start of the May Day rally, Powell’s management barred the doors—not suspecting they’d locked about a dozen Jobs with Justice activists in with the customers. While the rally unrolled outside, JwJ commenced a “Picnic for Justice” on the store floor. Managers let them be till the rally crowd thinned, then brought in the troops.

Remaining rally-goers watched through the glass doors, intent and aghast. Portland had known store owner Michael Powell as a free speech advocate. Now there were a dozen cops with clubs and helmets, ushering protesters out of his shop. No arrests were made, but after that management turned out the lights, emptied the registers and closed the store early for only the third time in its 30-year history.

The unfair labor practice strike that began on May Day spilled over to the next day. Workers from the suburban Beaverton branch store walked out, along with several from the Hoyt warehouse, the Hawthorne Blvd. store, the Internet department and even computer support. Managers and probationary employees ran the main store. Shipping slowed to a crawl with most of the department out. Michael Powell was seen filling in as a used book buyer in Beaverton.

Some 60 striking workers appeared at the Tuesday morning Convention session honoring newly organized workers. Delegates greeted them with a standing ovation and jumped to their feet cheering in the middle and at the end of Mary Winzig’s remarks. [see page 5]

“When the whole group of them was up front I saw them moved by the response from the delegates and a lot of us were moved also,” said Hawaii Local 142 Vice President Robert Girald. “You just have respect for your fellow worker, regardless of their color or race or the kind of work they do. And a lot of people could relate with their fight to get a first contract.”

As Local 12 troubador Harry Stamper sang his song for the Powell’s workers, delegates passed the hat to start a strike fund, raising almost $3,000.

“People were so sympathetic and supportive—I definitely had tears in my eyes,” said Ryan Takas, who serves on the Local 5 negotiating team and works in the Hoyt warehouse. “And to see people put money where their mouth is, that’s totally awesome. When we walked out of there people were totally giddy and smiling, totally stoked, saying ‘We can strike now, that’s not even a concern.’”

The ILWU came out in force again for the Powell’s workers Thursday afternoon. Delegates marched from the Hilton Hotel when the Convention recessed. Tension lingered from the police outburst downtown on May Day, but planning and discipline kept the procession lively, loud and legal. By the time the parade reached City of Books, you could see in the crowd of more than 500 faces from every region and division of the union. Workers at the store clocked out for lunch to join the rally.

“It was an amazing show of support,” said Cal Hudson, chief steward at Powell’s. “All those people standing in the rain—and I saw Powell’s people who’d never participated in anything before, never went to a union meeting or walked a picket line.”

Most of the International officers and numerous Local presidents gave brief and rousing greetings, as did Convention guests John Coombs, National Secretary of the Maritime Workers Union of Australia, and Manuel Cordero Aguila, Secretary-General of the National Sugar Workers Union of Cuba. Tom Leedham, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 206 in Portland, challenged local Democratic politicos to call Michael Powell on his anti-union behavior. Powell’s workers Sarah Race and Ciara McEwan appealed to the crowd to take a stand on police brutality.

Echoing themes hit by many speakers, longshore Local 8 President Mark Dreith said, “As I go around the city I’m pleased and proud when people see my ILWU button and say, ‘Oh, you’re with Powell’s.’…It’s not just a few people behind this. It’s the working class of the tri-county area and we say to Michael Powell, ‘Get out from behind your bookshelves and negotiate fairly. Give these workers a contract and give it now.’”

At rally’s end, participants linked elbows and encircled the store, which takes up a full city block. Chants rippled the length of the human chain. “One day longer, one day stronger!” shouted the delegates and Powell’s workers together, and you could see and hear the connections made during the week.

“There was a bit of division at the Convention, but the activity at Powell’s brought a lot of people together,” said IBU Southern California Patrolman Robert Romero.

Over and over, people would come up to the Powell’s workers and say things like, “This is what it’s all about. You’re the future.”

“One older guy was talking to a few of us, confessing his prejudice against people with different colored hair and piercings,” said Meredith Schafer, who heads the poetry section at City of Books. “Now, meeting us after 30 years in the ILWU, he said he’s re-thinking his ideas about the face of labor. We’re going to achieve things together.”

Local 5 walked out on a ULP strike again May 6, provoked by management surveillance of people participating in the strikes and rallies earlier in the week.

Management hastily called a negotiating session the Wednesday of Convention week. That meeting led to four days of intense bargaining over the next two weeks. These talks narrowed the issues on the table, but management is still nickel-and-diming workers on wages and stubbornly refusing reasonable union security language.

“Nobody said it would be easy,” Local 142’s Girald said. “I’m currently negotiating two first contracts and one started in mid-’98. But that’s part of unionism. The fight never ends. Once you have a contract you fight for administration of the contract. But you do achieve the right of representation, the right to speak up and be heard, the right to determine the future of your working conditions.”

“The first contract is always a tough one,” Local 23 President Roger Boespflug said. “It’s a sort of get-to-know you contract. You build on it each time. But tell the folks in Local 5 to stand together and stay together, and they’ll get what they want. And let them know we’re all behind them.”