ILWU: BUILD MASS PICKETS TO SHUT DOWN C&H CROCKETT!

July 13, 2026 – ILWU Local 6 warehouse workers have been out on strike against C&H Sugar in Crockett for over a month. The company is out for blood, aiming to rip up medical benefits for retirees, sick pay, seniority rights and overtime pay. It is stopping at nothing to break the strike. With ILWU Local 10 members refusing to cross the lines in Crockett, C&H diverted cargo to be unloaded at a private terminal in Richmond. The partially unloaded ship was then moved back to Crockett, where C&H is preparing to unload it with scabs reportedly being brought in from a Louisiana refinery.

The fight is on! The Defend Negros NorCal Coalition and other Filipino groups have manned ILWU pickets in Crockett and Richmond. In doing so, they have drawn a connection between the struggle of the Crockett workers and the impoverished sugar workers on the Philippine Island of Negros, where 19 people were massacred by the Armed Forces of the Philippines in April. Their solidarity has been vital, but this is not enough. The union needs to hit C&H with everything it’s got to stop its scab operation cold. The urgent task is to build mass pickets backed by the power of other ILWU longshore workers in the region.

A win at Crockett could become a real beacon to organizing other warehouse workers up and down the West Coast supply chain. The ILWU is seen as the powerhouse of the Bay Area union movement. If it is defeated by C&H, it will embolden the bosses to declare open season on unions throughout the region. The ILWU must appeal to the entire Bay Area labor movement: Build mass picket lines that no one dares to cross!

The strike has been weakened from the beginning by the treachery of the leadership of Sugar Workers Union (SWU) No. 1, an affiliate of the Seafarers International Union. Some SWU members initially walked out with the ILWU warehousemen, only to be ordered back on the job by their union leadership, which acts more like the C&H bosses than workers’ representatives. The ILWU should be appealing to the sugar refinery workers: Walk out in support of our struggle, and we will fight for you to get the same wages and benefits that we are fighting to maintain.

The battle against C&H Sugar, a subsidiary of American Sugar Refining Company, isn’t going to be won short of the collective flexing of labor’s muscle. As the largest sugar refining company in the world, ASR has the backing of the armed might of U.S. imperialism in the brutal exploitation of workers from the Philippines to the Caribbean. It is owned by Cuban gusanos, who got what they deserved when their giant sugar operations on the island were taken over by Castro’s guerrilla forces in the 1959 Cuban Revolution. With Trump gunning to completely destroy the remaining gains of the Cuban Revolution, ASR is as eager to restore its sugar domain on the island as it is to crush the ILWU.

The ILWU leadership has made a big deal of getting statements of support from Democratic Party politicians and self-styled progressives on the Richmond City Council. Don’t be fooled. These statements won’t stop scabs, and the Democrats aren’t about to do anything of the sort. They’re too committed to dragging down working people and the rest of the world to keep this country’s ruling class on top. To advance their fight, ILWU workers must ally with the working masses in countries being ground under the heel of U.S. imperialism. In turn, Filipino and other organizations fighting to defend the peoples of the Philippines, the Caribbean and Latin America must look to the U.S. working class as their allies in the struggle for national and social liberation.

The strike at C&H is the opening shot in the ILWU’s coming contract struggle with the PMA. Last time around, the union leadership kept the membership on the job for a year without a contract and then sold the bribe of a big wage increase bartered by the Biden administration when far more could have been won. Mobilizing ILWU members from the Bay Area to Sacramento in struggle at Crockett is vital. Build mass pickets! Stand with all those around the globe who are on the receiving end of the ASR bosses’ attacks. One struggle, one fight, workers of the world unite!