Open World Conference of Workers

In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights

Federal Judge Issues Taft-Hartley Injunction to End Lockout

By ALAN BENJAMIN

SAN FRANCISCO -- At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8th, Federal District Judge William Aslup issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) from a courtroom in San Francisco's Federal Building, effectively putting an end to the 11-day employer lockout of 10,500 ILWU longshore workers in 29 West Coast Ports. According to the TRO, the Pacific Martime Association (PMA) must lift its lockout immediately, with longshore workers returning to work as quickly as possible. A permanent 80-day "cooling-off" injunction will be issued, according to Judge Aslup, following a hearing scheduled for next week.

[See article below from the Oct. 9 New York Times.]

In his announcement of the TRO, Judge Aslup insisted that under the terms of this injunction there would be "no slowdowns" by the ILWU workers. He said he fully concurred with President Bush that the "health and safety of the nation" was imperiled by the current contract dispute and that work on the docks must resume, as Bush insisted in his press statement, at "a normal pace."

Following Judge Aslup's decision, ILWU President Jim Spinosa announced that the union would go back to work. He said there would be no slowdowns but went on to insist that the union was determined to "work safely" under the safety code established in the union's contract.

On just one hour's notice, the San Francisco Labor Council organized a protest action at the Federal Building that brought out 80 unionists and activists, with the largest contingent from SEIU Local 87. The activists, echoing the stance taken by the national and international labor movement, denounced the imposition of Taft-Hartley, calling it a Slave Labor Act aimed at imposing a return-to-work order under the bosses' terms. They called on the judge to refuse to hand down the injunction demanded by Bush and Ashcroft.

Unionists at the protest demonstration interviewed by this reporter warned that the PMA, with this court order, could now impose its much-sought-after speedup without having to abide by the safety code in the contract. "The situation is now very grave," said IBU-ILWU member Robert Irminger. "If the longshore workers insist on working safely under the provisions of the union's safety code, they risk being fined or even fired by the employers if a judge finds the workers to be jeopardizing the 'health and safety of the nation' and the terms of the Taft-Hartley injunction."

Irminger said the entire labor movement should be alerted to this real and present danger. "The PMA has brought the government in -- which was their intention all along. This is the same government that said they would militarize the docks if the ILWU were to strike for a better contract. We can expect the government and the courts to do the employers' bidding."

These warnings are well founded.

Earlier in day, the Labor Department had contacted both the union and the PMA with a proposal that they agree to return to work for 30 days under the provisions of the old contract, which expired earlier this summer. The union said it would agree to return to work under the 30-day contract extension, even though it had opposed such a proposal in the past -- but the PMA refused to lift the lockout under the terms proposed by the Labor Department.

The PMA's motives for rejecting this 30-day extension are most revealing. At a 2 p.m. press conference, PMA President Joseph Miniace said the PMA could not accept the 30-day extension because there was no guarantee under this agreement that (1) the "slowdowns" allegedly conducted by the ILWU prior to the lockout would be halted, and, (2) the union would agree to resume work at a "normal pace" following the 30 days. According to Miniace, the PMA required a Taft-Hartley injunction to prevent the "slowdowns" and to ensure that the 10-to-12 week backlog of ships could be properly attended to.

The charge of "slowdowns" by the ILWU, as the union's spokespersons have explained repeatedly, is completely unfounded. Prior to the employer lockout, the longshore workers were working at their regular fast pace. They did, however, refuse the speedups demanded by the PMA -- speedups that had led this year alone to five longshore deaths in Southern California.

The gauntlet has now been thrown down. The entire national and international labor movement must speak out loudly against the imposition of this Taft-Hartley injunction. And it must be ready to take action in the event the employers, through a compliant judge, move to fine or discipline workers for refusing the PMA's unacceptable speedup dictates and/or any other measures imposed by the PMA to break the union.

The time is now for labor to stand squarely behind the ILWU.

Please send statements of solidarity to the ILWU as soon as possible. An international labor solidarity rally is in the works for Thursday, October 10 at the hall of ILWU Local 10. It would be important to have solidarity greetings from around the world at this rally. Please send your statements to Steve Stallone, Communications Department, ILWU, at Fax: 415-775-1302, or email <stevestallone@ilwu.org>. Please send copies of your statements to the OWC Continuations Committee, c/o San Francisco Labor Council at Fax: 415-440-9297, or email <ilcinfo@earthlink.net>.

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(Alan Benjamin is a co-coordinator of the Continuations Committee of the Open World Conference. He is a delegate from OPEIU Local 3 to the San Francisco Labor Council.)

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Bush Invokes Taft-Hartley Act to Open West Coast Ports

By DAVID E. SANGER with STEVEN GREENHOUSE

(reprinted from the October 9 issue of The New York Times)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - President Bush intervened in the 11-day shutdown of 29 West Coast ports today, successfully seeking a court order today to halt the employers' lockout of 10,500 longshoremen, because the operation of the ports is "vital to our economy and to our military."

Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court in San Francisco issued a temporary injunction tonight that ordered the ports reopened immediately.

In seeking to suspend the shutdown for 80 days, Mr. Bush became the first president to successfully invoke the Taft-Hartley Act emergency provisions since President Richard M. Nixon sought to stop a longshoremen's strike in 1971.

Judge Alsup said he would hold a hearing in a week on whether to grant a full 80-day injunction. If he grants it, the dispute would be pushed past the Nov. 5 election, past the Christmas buying season and, perhaps, past the start of military action against Iraq.

Mr. Bush said he was worried about the movement of military supplies. The Pentagon often uses commercial shipping lines to send supplies and equipment overseas, and those lines would undoubtedly fill that role from the busy West Coast ports if fighting erupted in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East.

The president sought the court order after Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao was unable to negotiate a 30-day contract extension to reopen the ports. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union agreed to a 30-day extension. But the employers' group acknowledged that it had rejected an extension, saying it feared that the longshoremen would engage in a work slowdown.

Mr. Bush's aides said he was reluctant to act, but feared that a continuation of the shutdown would undermine a sputtering economic recovery. Some economists estimate that it has already cost the economy more than $10 billion.

"This dispute between management and labor cannot be allowed to further harm the economy and force thousands of working Americans from their jobs," Mr. Bush said in a hastily called announcement for reporters in the Rose Garden.

On Sept. 29, the Pacific Maritime Association, a group of port operators and shipping lines, shut the ports and locked out the longshoremen, accusing the workers of engaging in a slowdown. Union officials said the workers were merely observing safety precautions, because five longshoremen have died on the job this year. The union said the lockout was a management ploy intended to have the president intervene. Unions traditionally oppose back-to-work orders as government interference in contract disputes.

The major issue in this dispute is management's proposal to introduce new technologies to speed cargo handling.

The union has said it will not accept the new technology unless all new jobs resulting from it are in union jurisdiction.

For the White House, the decision today was a difficult political calculation. With union leaders opposed to a cooling-off period, some of Mr. Bush's political advisers feared that the move might mobilize union members against Republican candidates less than a month from the midterm elections.

Several unions that Mr. Bush has courted say such injunctions undercut labor's power in contract disputes.

"We're extremely disappointed," said Bret Caldwell, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union that Mr. Bush has wooed most vigorously. "The whole strategy of locking out the workers and urging the president to invoke Taft-Hartley was clearly an employer strategy to get around negotiating a contract with these workers. It's a bad precedent. It gives management the upper hand.'

Some White House officials argued that labor itself was divided on the issue.

"With every passing day, as the harm to economy increased, the president leaned more and more in this direction," a senior administration official said. "It buys some time. It gets us past Christmas."

Moreover, there is a chance that Mr. Bush may reap some benefit. Many business groups lobbied for him to seek an injunction, and they have sounded the alarm about the shutdown's potential to damage the economy.

Tracy Mullin, president of the National Retail Federation, said: "The President has shown political courage and leadership. He has put national security and the economy first."

Mr. Bush made his announcement one day after appointing a board of inquiry led by former Labor Secretary Bill Brock to report to him about the damage caused by the shutdown of ports that handle $300 billion in cargo each year. The board gave Mr. Bush a report this morning that said, "We have no confidence that the parties will resolve the West Coast ports dispute within a reasonable time."

A New York Times/CBS News poll published on Monday reported that voters were increasingly disenchanted with Mr. Bush's handling of the economy. Although the White House has argued that there is little that a president can do to control the business cycle, discussion in the administration grew over the weekend that inaction would only contribute to concerns that Mr. Bush was too remote from economic worries.

In his brief Rose Garden statement, Mr. Bush said: "The crisis in our Western ports is hurting the economy. It is hurting the security of our country, and the federal government must act. Americans are working hard every day to bring our economy back from recession. This nation simply cannot afford to have hundreds of billions of dollars a year in potential manufacturing and agricultural trade sitting idle."

Many business leaders praised the president for seeking a cooling-off period, noting that the amount of money separating the two sides, $20 million by some estimates, was infinitesimal compared to the damage the dispute done to the economy.

A spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, Darren McKinney, said: "While the N.A.M. would have preferred the parties' coming together amicably and resolving the issue before governmental intervention became necessary, they failed in that and all the while the economy was being severely damaged. So we support the president's move."

Administration, management and union officials said the Labor Department solicitor, Eugene Scalia, contacted the heads of the union and the Pacific Maritime Association, the port operators' group, this morning to propose a 30-day contract extension. Several union leaders praised that approach, because it showed that the administration was seeking to heed union concerns and avoid invoking the Taft-Hartley Act.

An official in the talks said that the union agreed to a 30-day extension, but that the companies rejected it. Joseph Miniace, president of the operators' group, based in San Francisco, said in a telephone interview he could not accept such an extension when the longshoremen seemed quite likely to work at a slow pace when they were back on the job.

"A 30-day extension, while we believe it would be a good short-term solution, clearly does not answer the questions of what happens in the long term," Mr. Miniace said. "We have been negotiating for five months without a solution."

But when the maritime association ruled out the extension, administration officials decided that they had no option but to seek an injunction.

Officials of the union accused the employers' group and the Bush administration of conspiring to order an injunction to weaken the workers' hand, an assertion that the administration and employers denied.

The A.F.L.-C.I.O. also denounced the president's move.

"We're absolutely furious," said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "The P.M.A. locked the workers out, contrived a phony crisis and then gets rescued by the administration. They're getting their way and have the weight of the government behind them."

He said it was especially infuriating that the companies had rejected the extension proposed by the administration and then still had the administration do what it wanted, seeking an 80-day cooling off period.

The Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, allows presidents to seek injunctions against strikes and lockouts that "imperil the national health or safety."

The act calls for a 60-day cooling-off period while mediators continue working with the feuding parties. Then the National Labor Relations Board has 15 days to poll employees to see whether they will accept management's final proposal and an an additional five days to tally the votes. If the workers reject the proposal, they can strike.