Missoula IWW

By Erica Johnson, Branch Secretary, Davis Ritsema, Branch Treasurer, C.W. Copeland, Branch Delegate - Missoula IWW, September 6, 2016

Members of the Missoula IWW General Membership Branch are donating to the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp legal defense fund in the coming days and we also urge others to also give what they can. The following declaration of solidarity with the Standing Rock defenders was unanimously approved in meeting today. Fellow workers, friends and supporters, feel free to share widely:

We the members of the Missoula General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World would like to express our full support of and solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and all others resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Sacred Stone Camp at Cannonball, North Dakota. Native peoples and their allies seeking to stop this exploitative and ecologically disastrous assault upon the northern plains have been slandered by both racist local police agencies and the corporate press at large in a way that recalls similar smear campaigns against other historic civil and labor rights movements. As capitalist entities continue on their path of pursuing profit at the cost of the very earth that sustains us all, we draw tremendous encouragement and inspiration from the indomitable defenders taking a stand at Cannonball.

We would also like to take a minute to call upon the Laborers International Union of North America workers currently employed by Dakota Access, LLC/EnergyTransfer Partners to lay down your tools and demand that the out-of-control private security officers be called off the project. LIUNA workers should also demand that your union officers pursue other, more sustainable contracts in the upgrade, repair and construction of civilian infrastructure. This would provide your union with more stable long term work projects that would not come at the expense of soil and water quality or infringe upon the sacred sites of the Lakota and other indigenous peoples. Know well that oil industry billionaires like Kelcy Warren would gladly break your union if they could- see how thoroughly they have already compromised it. The only thing lower than scabbing on organized labor is scabbing on humanity itself- does this cross your minds when company goons unleash attack dogs upon pregnant women and small children before your very eyes?

Since the first tentacles of capitalist economy snaked west with the advent of the fur trade, native communities were the first targets of its schemes and the first great resistance against them. Their resistance has continued through gold rushes, land grabs, ethnic cleansing, cultural repression, government allotment swindles and the theft of their very children. The continued struggle at places like Cannonball is a testament to the iron will of tribal peoples. Here's to the defenders at Sacred Stone Camp- we stand in full support of your fight and will proudly strive to render whatever specific or general assistance may be requested. In solidarity:

Erica Johnson, Branch Secretary
Davis Ritsema, Branch Treasurer
C.W. Copeland, Branch Delegate