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World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
A Waterfront Strike?
By JACK HEYMAN
There's a storm brewing on the West Coast. It's a labor conflict
between global shipowners and the West Coast longshore union. Contentious
contract negotiations are taking place in San Francisco between the union,
the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and the waterfront
employers represented by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). Their
contract expired July 1.
PMA and its president, Joe Miniace, used unusually harsh rhetoric to
demand early negotiations over the introduction of computer technology.
The ILWU agreed, but now the employers are stalling. PMA press releases
paint the union as neanderthals resistant to change. The union, in fact,
does not oppose new information technology but wants to protect its
jurisdiction on the docks or wherever the jobs are. Increasingly,
longshore clerk jobs which involve shipboard cargo stowage planning, are
done in places like Utah, Arizona and even overseas. Last year dockers in
Marseilles, France, struck for and won a reduced work week of 35-hours,
showing how workers can embrace technology and protect jobs.
Employers are now provocatively insisting that medical benefits in one of
the most dangerous industries should be drastically reduced, while the
question of technology has not seriously been addressed. A lock-out by
employers of some 11,000 dockworkers from Bellingham, Washington, to San
Diego could cost a significant part of the $300 billion annual trade
through West Coast ports, as the peak trading season with Asia begins.
For some longshore workers a more critical issue is the union hiring hall,
the basis of the union's power. Under the guise of technological reform,
the PMA is attempting to bypass the hiring hall won in the militant 1934
Maritime Strike after six strikers were killed by police. The hiring hall
put an end to the employers' "shape-up" system, which was rife
with discrimination and corruption. Located near the docks, the hiring
hall enables shipowners and stevedore companies to hire longshore workers
on a daily basis to supplement a skeleton crew of "steadymen."
Employers would eliminate the hiring hall by the introduction of a
computerized or telephone dispatch system. For longshoremen this is a
strike issue.
Another time-worn propaganda ploy is to portray workers as
"overpaid". Yet, the San Francisco longshore union -- which is
at least 75% black and Latino, roughly equivalent to the ethnic
composition of Oakland or of waterfront workers nationally -- does not
deny that the union provides a decent living for its members. Company
claims of an average wage of $100,000+ are greatly exaggerated because
they don't take into account lower seniority workers, those who work less
than 1,600 hours a year and injured workers. Furthermore, the demanding
24/7 longshore work is classified by Cal OSHA as "high hazard"
-- a point conveniently omitted by global shipowners as is their profits.
Fighting globalization
The last West Coast maritime strike was in 1971, again over the
question of technology. What is different this time is the exponential
growth in containerization and globalization. For the shipowners this has
meant vastly increased global trade and monopolistic transnational
mergers. As an example the Oakland-based American President Lines is now
owned by NOL in Singapore.
Six years ago, dockers in Liverpool, England, inspired maritime workers in
their struggle against WTO-style privatization, a key component of
capitalist globalization. Their call for "international labor
solidarity" resonated on docks the world over. When labor activists
in the port of Oakland picketed against the ship Neptune Jade in
solidarity with the Liverpool dockers, PMA loudly proclaimed a legal suit
against the longshore union. In the end PMA meekly dropped the case after
dockworker protests. The ship was subsequently boycotted in Canada and
Japan by longshoremen.
The ILWU has a proud legacy of solidarity actions on the docks for
beleaguered South African workers under apartheid, striking Australian
wharfies and most recently victimized longshoremen in Charleston, South
Carolina. Nelson Mandela and many others have acknowledged ILWU's
contributions to social progress.
So why has the PMA been stonewalling negotiations? Employers are seeking
to benefit from the heightened security in the wake of the horrendous 9/11
attack. Even before, employers had been lobbying hard for government
intervention against maritime unions. The recent passage of the USA
Patriot Act and the impending Maritime Security Act especially target
maritime workers for screening, many of whom are minority and immigrant
workers. Just last week Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security czar, made a
chilling call to Jim Spinosa, president of the ILWU, to caution him
against a breakdown in negotiations that may disrupt trade. Under the
rubric of "national security" the social fabric of our society
is being transformed. Bush's agenda is jettisoning democratic rights,
trade union rights, and civil liberties for all in his "War on
Terrorism."
If PMA's intransigence continues unabated it will force a lockout or a
strike and put to the test ILWU's slogan, "An injury to one is an
injury to all." Global shippers may unwittingly be unleashing a tidal
wave of solidarity actions from dockworkers around the world.
(This ILWU rank-and-file leaflet was written by Jack Heyman, who has been
organizing ILWU solidarity actions since the 1984 anti-apartheid ship
boycott, including actions for the Liverpool dockers, the Australian
wharfies, Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Charleston longshoremen.)