The California and Hawaii (C&H) Sugar Refinery warehouse workers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 6 forced C&H Sugar to re-enter negotiations on July 27 after a six-week-long strike that united workers and anti-imperialist protesters against scabs and state repression in Crockett, California.
As the new round of negotiations with C&H unfold, ILWU Local 6 workers agreed to work during a 60-day period that began on July 30 under a temporary extension of their existing contract.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 6 initiated a strike on June 15 after C&H sought in negotiations to take away retiree medical benefits, reduce overtime pay, cut sick days by half, eliminate the established seniority system for promotion, and unfairly schedule weekend work. The ILWU Local 10 workers joined the ILWU Local 6’s strike along with hundreds of solidarity protesters from the area.
The picket swelled with solidarity protesters after the Defend Negros Northern California Coalition engaged ILWU Local 6 workers to expand their demands to include an anti-imperialist boycott of sugar imports from the Philippines. The boycott was a response to the Old State of the Philippines’ April 19 massacre of nineteen people and the displacement of 600 people on Negros Island, part of an armed operation against the Northern Negros Front of the New People’s Army (NPA). The NPA is led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which has been waging people’s war against the Old State of the Philippines for 57 years.
C&H Sugar responded to the strike by hiring scabs and facilitating state repression. On July 21, C&H directed scabs to unload sugar from a cargo ship during the strike, prompting around 400 supporters to join the picket. Two scabs then drove their trucks into the crowd and injured ILWU workers. Later, police declared the picket an unlawful assembly, handcuffed 10 people, and threatened to arrest protesters or use “less lethal munitions, chemical agents, or police dogs,” according to reporting by Bay City News. That same day, C&H issued a restraining order against ILWU workers alleging that workers formed a “blockade of our refinery” and that contractors “trying to do business with C&H Sugar have had their tractor trailers’ brake lines cut and tires slashed.”
The C&H sugar monopoly is owned by the Fanjul family, owner of Domino Foods—one of the largest refiners of cane sugar in the world with millions in donations to the Democratic and Republican mafias. Every year, C&H sources tens of thousands of metric tons of sugar from Negros Island, collaborating with the Filipino landlord and comprador classes, which are aligned with US Imperialism, to oppress and super-exploit Filipino peasants and farmworkers.
Image: International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) workers on strike at C&H in Crockett, CA, 2026. Credit: ILWU Local 6.
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