Cops Arrested C&H Strikers and Picketers. The Courts Go For Repression Again.

“A strike's not just a public relations gimmick. It's a battle. You starve them for profits, or they starve you out,” said Emily Turnbull, a retired member of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10. On August 19th, Turnbull joined a crowd of over 100 people who gathered outside the Richmond Superior Court in support of the Crockett Ten: five ILWU Local 10 longshoremen and five community members arrested on the picket line outside the C&H Sugar factory in Crockett, California. 

C&H on Strike: A Brief Overview

By mid-July, C&H factory workers, represented by ILWU Local 6, had been on strike for over five weeks, pushing back against a contract proposed by the company that would revoke retiree health benefits for all employees, including already-retired employees who presently rely on those benefits to access medications and healthcare.

The proposed contract would also withhold time-and-a-half overtime pay until employees work more than 40 hours in a week, shifting from the California state standard of 8 hours per day. C&H warehouse employees say the majority work 12-hour shifts every day, relying on overtime pay to make ends meet. Furthermore, under this proposed contract, C&H Sugar would no longer be required to respect seniority in hiring or scheduling decisions, allowing management to potentially discipline specific workers by denying them overtime. The proposal would also reduce workers’ paid sick days by half. According to workers, while the strike was ongoing, C&H bought flights for scabs contracted from out of state, provided them with time-and-a-half overtime pay, and paid for private transportation to and from their temporary housing.

C&H Sugar called its proposal “robust,” citing a 20% wage increase over the next five years. Workers say that a 4% raise per year would merely keep pace with inflation, and that cuts to benefits total around a 30% loss of income.

C&H Sugar is owned by American Sugar Refining (ASR). ASR is the world’s largest cane sugar refiner, owned by Alfonso and José Fanjul — wealthy, Cuban-born brothers and major political donors with close ties to President Trump. One day before the court date for the Crockett Ten, the New York Times reported on claims that workers at the largest sugar producer in the Dominican Republic, owned by José Fanjul, are subject to abusive labor practices. 

Earlier in July, picketing workers from ILWU Local 6 and 10 were joined by the Defend Negros Coalition as ILWU longshoremen refused to unload a shipment of sugar that was allegedly harvested near the site of the Toboso Massacre, during which the Philippine Army reportedly killed 19 people — including farmers, a journalist, students, and human rights advocates — in April of this year. In response, C&H diverted the shipment to Levin Richmond Terminal Corporation, an industrial dock where, according to ILWU Local 10 president Mike Villeggiante, the sugar was unloaded in proximity to coal, scrap metal, and fuel products.

“Go On And Turn That Truck Away”

On July 21st, as C&H attempted to use scab labor to unload sugar purportedly sourced near the site of a recent massacre, ILWU Local 10 shut down every port in Northern California, including Crockett. Hundreds of union members and community members showed up in solidarity, maintaining a militant picket line across every entrance to the plant, blocking scabs from entering. 

Will Wright is an Amazon employee and one of the ten defendants arrested at the picket on July 21st. “[Picketers] were chanting things like, ‘You ain't gonna get no sugar today, go on and turn that truck away,’” Wright said. “And the trucks did turn around. No sugar went in or out of the plant that day. They were stopping scabs from going in and out, enforcing the most basic union principle: Picket lines mean ‘Don't cross.’” Supporters present at the picket line reported that trucks carrying sugar were backed up from the factory gates to the freeway offramp, half a mile away.

Toward the end of the day, picketers received word that the ship hatches had opened, and scabs were beginning to unload the sugar. Picketers moved from the truck entrance toward the main entrance to the plant, continuing to block scabs from entering. Contra Costa sheriffs declared the picket an unlawful assembly and issued an order to disperse. “They had riot police out there, a full force,” Villeggiante said. “There were at least sixty to seventy police out in that area, plus they had another fifty highway patrolmen up on the top by the freeway with paddy wagons.”

Yohannes Dagne, an ILWU longshoreman, was also arrested on the picket line. “I was just walking away from where the picket line was, right at the entrance of a gate for the workers to go in, and the police were having people disperse,” Dagne said. “I didn't want to, but I was still walking away. And that's when they charged us and started to arrest us. I was basically thrown to the ground. Without saying anything, no explanation, [a police officer] tried to get my hands behind my back and in handcuffs. So I was asking him, like, ‘Why are you trying to arrest me, put me in handcuffs? What's going on?’ I was trying to ask questions I'm allowed to ask. That's when three [or] four other ones started to try and get me down. We were tussling and broke a window… and then one of them was on my back; got me on the ground. It was really hard to breathe.”

Dagne was charged with three misdemeanors and a felony for resisting arrest. When he was released from jail after being held overnight, he says he was denied the name of the arresting officer who forced him to the ground and injured him. “One of the cops behind the window that gave me my stuff back, I was asking him, ‘Can I get my arresting officer's name?’ And he just kind of looked at me, and he was like, ‘Do you want to go back in there?’ And then I just kind of walked away, 'cause obviously I don't.”

Seven of those arrested received misdemeanor charges, while three — including Dagne — were charged with felonies. According to Villeggiante, at least four picketing union members were struck by cars that drove through the picket line. None of the drivers were charged. 

A Return to Operations

On July 30th, after nearly six weeks on strike, C&H warehouse employees returned to work for a 60-day contract negotiation period under their prior contract. Chloe Murray is a supporter of the Internationalist Group — a coalition in favor of international socialist revolution —and one of the Crockett Ten. Murray voiced concerns that the decision to return to work was a mistake. “If you're having negotiations and the union's not out there, they lose their leverage,” Murray said. “When they went back for the 60-day rest period, they didn't win ‘no reprisals.’ [A legal term prohibiting employers from retaliating against employees pursuing their rights.] So a couple of unionists were already fired, and they didn't manage to get them rehired before going back to negotiations and shutting down the picket line.” 

In late June, C&H Sugar Human Resources notified four ILWU warehouse employees that they would be fired immediately due to their activity during the strike. The Internationalist Group writes, “A bottom-line condition for returning to work, even if only to resume bargaining, must be no reprisals. The ILWU should demand that those workers be reinstated immediately as a condition for moving forward.”

“[The cooling-off period is] just 60 days, but we have to use that period to regroup and defend the union,” said Turnbull. “The first step is, of course, defense of the Crockett Ten, but it doesn't stop with that. The union needs to defend [Local 6 members fired for activity on the picket line] and make sure they get their jobs back. If we don't defend the union and win at C&H, they're going to come big for us in the 2028 contract negotiations. It's a challenge to the union, and it's a test.”

“The Capitalist System of Injustice”

On August 19th, supporters of the Crockett Ten gathered outside the Richmond Superior Courthouse, calling upon District Attorney Diana Becton to drop the charges. Hearings were split into two groups: misdemeanor defendants at 8:30 am, felony defendants at 1:30 pm. When defendants arrived at the courthouse in the morning, it was confirmed that the charges against them had not been dropped — they had not even been filed. David, a misdemeanor defendant who asked to be identified by first name only, said, “They are going to, most likely, drag out this filing as long as possible. They want this looming over the heads of activists and union members to intimidate them. They want them to not do this again, because now it's like, ‘Oh, I want to take this militant action. Well, I got that case hanging over my head. I don't want to make that worse.’ So it's a tactic that they're unfortunately going to use.” 

In a post on Instagram, the Partisan Defense Committee wrote, “The DA did not proceed with charges but has left the threat of filing them hanging over the heads of the defendants. This is meant to intimidate picketers if the ILWU Local 6 warehouse workers strike again when the 60-day cooling-off period at C&H ends on September 30.” 

At noon, a crowd formed in front of the courthouse as representatives from a broad coalition of unions and activist groups — AFSCME Council 57, ATU Local 1277, members of the Stanford 11, the Partisan Defense Committee, the Spartacist League, and UFCLP among them — read statements of solidarity with C&H workers. Speakers called for the formation of a class struggle labor party and a break with Democratic Party leadership, denounced the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the U.S. embargoes on Cuba, and drew a link between local labor struggles and global exploitation of the working class. “No other force is going to defend us except us, whether it is in Crockett, or Cuba, or the Philippines, where workers paid with their lives fighting the same forces that ILWU is fighting,” said a union member from ATU Local 1555. 

Speakers also emphasized the necessity of militant pickets to put pressure on profit-driven bosses. “Unfortunately, for most of the time Local 6 was on strike, the picket lines did not stop the operation,” said Turnbull. “C&H was able to keep working and to keep their scab operation going. And the way to win a strike is to stop C&H's operations.” 

Other supporters present throughout the day included Diana Coleman, veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Terry Lovett, mother of the late Jalani Lovett, and Bay Area filmmaker and musician Boots Riley, most recently recognized for his film I Love Boosters.

At 1:30, defendants filed back into the courthouse to review the status of the second scheduled hearing. Defendants learned, according to Wright, that they are required to call the DA’s office every three weeks to check whether charges had been filed, until either charges are filed or the statute of limitations passes. The statute of limitations for misdemeanor defendants is one year from the date of the alleged crime, and three years for felony defendants. If a defendant does not call and misses a scheduled hearing as a result, the judge assigned to their case can issue a warrant for their arrest. 

“They do this all the time,” Wright said. “This is the capitalist system of injustice that they have, where they hold charges like this — you know, trumped-up charges — over the heads of Black and brown people and working-class people habitually, as a part of their system.”