https://iclfi.org/pubs/slus/2026-pdc-crockett
6 August 2026
Diana Becton, District Attorney
Office of the Contra Costa District Attorney
900 Ward St
Martinez, CA 94553
Email: DAOffice@contracostada.org
The Partisan Defense Committee protests the arrests of ten ILWU members and others who stood with striking members of ILWU Local 6 on their picket lines at C&H Sugar in Crockett, California on July 21. These arrests are an open attack on the very right of unions to picket.
After police from the Contra Costa Sheriff’s department issued an order to disperse, they surrounded a group of picketers who were leaving the lines. One black worker was thrown against a plate glass window. The police pinned him to the ground with a knee in his back. Taken to the hospital for treatment, he was then thrown in jail and held overnight together with two other Local 10 members. All three face charges ranging from failure to disperse and resisting police to threats and battery against police officers. The others have been charged with failure to disperse.
The police attack on the picket lines at C&H and the charges now being faced by ILWU members and others are a frontal assault on the entire labor movement. ILWU Local 6 warehouse workers, who had been on strike for over five weeks, faced an army of scabs hired by the company to break the strike and strip them of medical benefits for retirees, overtime pay and health benefits.
We demand that all the charges against the ILWU members and other strike supporters be dropped immediately!
Amy Richardson
For the Partisan Defense Committee
