OCCASIONAL PAPER NO.

1 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012

The Battle With Bunge:
The Class War from Longview
to the Mississippi River to the Globe
By Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Leith Kahl and Brian Wiles, Malcolm X Solidarity Committee
The Port of Longview, Cowlitz County, Washington
State, is a small, depressed, rural, and overwhelmingly
white logging town on the banks of the Columbia
River. It is not necessarily the place one might have
predicted that a struggle would develop which could
be a critical turning point for organized labor and the
multinational working class in the United States as a
whole.
On July 14th, 200 longshoremen sat down
on a railroad track into Longview to block
a train full of corn bound for a newly
constructed grain export terminal built on
the riverbank by a consortium of capital
called EGT. The purpose of this sit-down
action was to demand that EGT adhere to
the coast wide system of labor agreements
between Pacific coast grain transport
operators and the International Longshore
and Warehouse Union (ILWU) that have
been in effect since the late 1930s to obtain
the human labor for this export terminal.
In a deliberate effort to contravene, and
ultimately destroy, the bargaining position of
the ILWU and the coast wide agreements,
EGT co-opted the conservative leadership
of the Operating Engineers Local 701 and
hired its members to work this port facility
under substandard working conditions.
On September 7th through
8th, the ILWUs International
President was assaulted by
a cop while leading another
protest to block the same
EGT grain trains second
attempt to reach the export
facility. The longshoremen
of the Pacific Northwest
responded by shutting down
all ports between Portland and
Bellingham for 24 hours, and by mobilizing hundreds to Longview that night,
where the trains contents were dumped all over the railroad tracks.
These actions demonstrate the
determination and militancy of the ILWU,
and the escalation of the struggle to a
regional level well beyond the boundaries
of one small timber town. ILWU Local
21, which consists of the longshoreman
of that small timber town, has also shown
outstanding fortitude and resolve over
the many months of struggle, defying
the injunctions of the capitalist courts,
sustaining over 200 arrests and physical
assaults by law enforcement, and standing up against the local county sheriff
who has decided to behave as if he was a captain of EGTs private army of
mercenaries.
In late January, after pressure
mounted on EGT from the ILWU
and its allies, particularly the Occupy
Movement, following militant actions
on December 12, 2011, to shut down
ports all along the Pacific Coast,
and the pending threat of a major
mobilization to stop the next grain
shipment to Longview, Washington
State Governor Chris Gregoire
was able to mediate a tentative
agreement with EGT and the ILWU. The details of this contract agreement
are actively being worked out with ILWU Local 21 and the International. So
now it appears that EGT will comply with the coast wide system of labor
agreements established with the ILWU. But only time and struggle will tell.
This agreement, in and of itself, is not however going to stop a behemoth
like EGT. EGT is an arm of one the largest conglomerates of capital in the
world: Bunge Limited, a transnational agribusiness monopoly. Headquartered
in the United States, it was originally founded by Dutch and Belgian slave
traders.
1
It is now one of four companies that literally control more than two-
thirds of the worlds grain production and distribution. Bunge is a global
powerhouse on a mission. That mission is to divide and weaken the working
class on a global scale. EGT/Bunges attack on the ILWU is not just an
attempt to break this strategic union, it is a deliberate effort to eliminate the
historic gains of organized labor in the United States and to firmly discipline
and control the multinational working class contained within it.
The full magnitude of the EGT/Bunge attack on the multinational working
class only comes into full focus when we examine the following map, taken
1
For background on Bunges origins see http://www.bungenorthamerica.com/about-bunge/company-his-
tory.shtml. For more information with the link to the trans-Atlantic slave trade see http://old.antislavery.
org/breakingthesilence/slave_routes/slave_routes_netherlands.shtml and http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/
review/545.
from Bunge Limiteds website,
2
of Bunges established operations in North
America:
As this map clearly illustrates, Bunge has concentrated its operations
along what is essentially the fourth coast of the United States: the mighty
Mississippi river and its tributaries. From this placement it is clear that their
North American strategy has been to control the transport of grain from
the Midwest and Great Plains regions to the rest of the country and the
world.
In order to control production and distribution on this level, Bunge has to
control the labor of the region. It is no historic accident that most of the
strategic states in which the giant transnational Bunge corporation maintains
operations are so-called Right to Work
3
states.
2
This map can be found at http://www.bungenorthamerica.com/locations/usa/.
3
It is critical to note that the United States use of this term differs radically than its international
application and definition employed by the United Nations and the International Labor Organization
(ILO). In the U.S. right-to-work means that unions cannot bargain or establish collective contracts
with their employers to protect their interests. The vast majority of the states that have right-to-
work laws in the United States are concentrated in the South, where monopoly capital has been able
to co-opt and collaborate with white workers to defeat union organizing drives in order to maintain
the system of white supremacy and its fragmented spoils. In the UN system, which includes the ILO,
right-to-work means that all human beings must have access to dignified work or income to sustain
themselves. In the UN system this right is explicitly linked with the right to organize and to bargain
collectively. For more information on the international understanding visit http://www2.ohchr.org/english/
law/cescr.htm.
Bunge has been and remains an avid promoter of right-to-work legislation
for decades. Right-to-work legislation is historically enabled by the division
of the multinational working class, which is divided by the peculiar US
system of white supremacy developed by the European settlers of North
America and their descendants to ensure their continued domination of the
continent and its peoples.
Organized labors failure to defeat white supremacy within its ranks
provides monopoly capital enterprises like Bunge with the ability to press
its advantages and initiate campaigns like the one aimed at destroying the
ILWU.
The Battle against Bunge is a critical battle for the multinational working
class of the United Statesone that must to be won if any of the historic
gains of organized labor are to be retained. To win this decisive battle, the
working class, organized and unorganized, is going to have to go on the
offensive and take the Battle to Bunge.
The Malcolm X Solidarity Committee (MXSC) believes that an offensive
campaign must be mounted against Bunge that includes a range of tactics
including non-violent civil disobedience, mass industrial action, and most
importantly, strengthening the organization of the workers in the port and
transportation industries along the Mississippi River. In effect, we need an
Operation Black Belt
4
to organize and win where Operation Dixie
5

failed.
Operation Black Belt is a conceptual organizing campaign that addresses
the necessity of organizing the multinational working class in the South,
particularly concentrating on organizing Black workers in the region who
form the core of the oppressed Black or New Afrikan nation that has been
superexploited for centuries and to whom reparations are due to rectify the
crimes against humanity and colonial oppression it continues to suffer.
4
The Black Belt historically refers to those regions in the South that possessed the highest quality soils
and the highest concentrations of enslaved Afrikans (and to a lesser extent, Indigenous Peoples) to
produce cash crops like cotton, rice, tobacco, indigo, etc.
5
For more information on Operation Dixie read Settlers: the Mythology of the White Proletariat, by J.
Sakai.
Operation Dixie was a heroic but failed effort of the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) to organize the multinational working class in the South
from 19461953. It failed due to the CIOs capitulation to white supremacy
and the suppression and expulsion of the radical left wing forces within that
labor federation during this periodincluding the ILWU in 1950.
With militant leadership, democratic coordination, unrelenting
determination, and principled partnerships with oppressed peoples
(Indigenous Nations, Blacks, Chicanos, immigrants, etc.) and the unorganized
sectors of the multinational working class, the EGT/Bunge assault can be
defeated, and an Operation Black Belt organizing campaign can enable a
radical reorganization of the Mississippi River and the Black Belt South.
We encourage everyone to
stand in solidarity with ILWU
Local 21 and support solidarity
formations like the Committee
to Defend the ILWU and the
Million Worker March in taking
action to stop EGT/Bunge. We
also encourage everyone to
spread the research information
that we have compiled to
educate the multinational
working class about who and
what it is up against in this struggle.
We would also like to encourage everyone to support the call for launching
and organizing a massive Operation Black Belt campaign. Defeating the
initiative of EGT/Bunge in Longview is not going to be enough to stop their
onslaught against workers. In order to effectively push back the assaults of
EGT/Bunge and other capitalist behemoths like them, we are going to have
to effectively organize the historic rear base of capitalist domination in the
US, the South.
hg
A Profle of EGT/Bunge Limited
Compiled by the Malcolm X Solidarity Committee
We hope the links below will help combat the reactionary initiatives of
EGT/Bunge and provide some overall accurate context to this specific fight
between labor and capital. The following links are the preliminary results
of the online research conducted by the Malcolm X Solidarity Committee.
However, this is clearly just the tip the iceberg. More research is needed.
According to its own website, Bunge begins in Amsterdam in 1818:
http://www.bungenorthamerica.com/about-bunge/company-history.shtml
We have yet to uncover any specific info on the Bunge family prior to 1818.
But, here are two links which thoroughly demonstrate that Dutch grain
handling operations founded at that time were definitely founded by capital
accumulated directly through slave trade (which, incidentally, is true of the
capital that started nearly if not absolutely all the major shipping lines on the
globe today):
http://old.antislavery.org/breakingthesilence/slave_routes/slave_routes_
netherlands.shtml
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/545
Bunge's next big move to expand itself is by setting up operations in
Argentina in 1884:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunge_y_Born
Here's what was done to native people in Argentina specifically to clear the
way for Bunge and its ilk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Desert
Bunge's map of its current operations in the northern half of Turtle Island,
i.e. the United States and Canada (notice the extreme concentration of its
capital in the Mississippi River Valley):
http://www.bungenorthamerica.com/locations/index.shtml
Rainforest Action Network accuses Bunge of using modern slavery in Brazil:
http://ran.org/content/rainforest-action-network-protests-bunge-shareholder-
meeting
Article by the Washington State Labor Council which hypocritically only
criticizes the foreign nature of Bunge's Korean and Japanese partners in
the EGT venture (http://www.panocean.com/ and http://www.itochu.co.jp/
en/ respectively), while remaining silent on the apparently senior role of
Bunge itself. The attempt to paint the fight against Bunge as an American
struggle against foreign, non-American capital is a dangerous tactic that will
only preserve job or craft consciousness and stifle class consciousness:
http://www.thestand.org/2011/09/heres-why-longshore-workers-are-so-angry/
hg
To join us in this initiative, please contact us at:
operationblackbelt@gmail.com
hg
If you would like more information about the
Malcolm X Solidarity Committee, please contact us
at:
malcolmxsolidaritycommittee@gmail.com
For further information, or
to link up with us for future
actions and joint organizing,
please visit our websites:
MXGM.org
NavigatingTheStorm.
blogspot.com