Administration Should Keep Clear of Dock Fight
By Prof. David J. Olson 2002

Turmoil and conflict between employers and workers mark this Labor Day. From teachers in public schools, machinists at Boeing, graduate students at the University of Washington, to Mariner baseball players, worker unrest has been seemingly pervasive. The Bush administration remains preoccupied with fighting terrorism and threatening unilateral warfare against Iraq, with little heed given to domestic ferment among workers, except in the case of West Coast waterfront workers. Bush administration responses to the current impasse between longshore workers and their employers give little cause for reassurance, and instead are poorly timed, ill-considered, inflammatory and counterproductive.

The specter of pitched battles on the waterfront haunts West Coast ports handling cargo shipments critical to the national economic recovery. A work stoppage would cost the nation an estimated $1 billion per day, equaling 7 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Relative peace over the past 30 years might soon give way to the first waterfront strike since 1971. Current negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), representing waterfront workers, and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), representing ship owners and terminal operators, are stalled. 

There is no evidence of a slowdown in cargo handling, but both sides have stockpiled strike funds and made strike contingency plans. Some issues still on the bargaining table are familiar: wages and benefits; retiree pay and health benefits; contract work rules; and outsourcing union jobs. The PMA also wants to abolish the local arbitration system.

The PMA demands introduction of new technologies to enhance productivity. Projections have trade between Asia and the U.S. doubling in the next 10 years, but West Coast ports are land-scarce. Already congestion is frequent, as truck and train compete for port access. New information technologies (IT) promise quicker gate check-ins and electronic cargo-tracking, thereby replacing union workers. The ILWU insists that the new, information-based jobs created by IT fall within its jurisdiction. The ILWU has a reputation as adaptive to new technologies, dating to the widely heralded "Modernization and Mechanization" agreement in the early 1960s that launched the new container shipping technology. 

In return, the ILWU secured agreement that longshore pay would rise with productivity gains, and existing workers would receive guaranteed pay as their numbers declined. The numbers went from 100,000 workers in 1960 to 10,500 in 2002, and the current compensation ranges rose to between $80,000 and $158,000 annually, making them the highest paid blue-collar workers in the country. This is a proud and prosperous union: The former "wharf rats" are now "lords of the dock." Why no agreement on new technology in return for concessions this time? A first answer is that the complex PMA change proposals require time and deliberation to reach agreement.

A second answer points to the ham-handed behavior of the Bush administration. Prior administrations wisely stayed clear of bargaining between the powerful PMA and the militant ILWU. But not the Bush administration.

Here is the story. A third party, calling itself the West Coast Waterfront Coalition (WCWC), whose shipper members feared a slowdown, strike or lockout, turned to the Bush administration for intervention. The White House formed an initially secret task force. Members of the task force threatened to: invoke the 80-day cooling off period under the Taft Hartley Act; place the ILWU under the Railway Labor Act; use U.S. Navy personnel to work and the National Guard to patrol the docks; and break up the ILWU master contract. 

The master contract dates to the famous 1934 strike and covers the entire West Coast longshore workforce: It is near sacred to the ILWU. Any attacks on it are fighting words to the ILWU members. If the fight comes, chaos will rule the waterfront. The ILWU responded to Bush administration interventions by organizing large demonstrations in West Coast port cities and it mobilized alliances previously formed with the Teamsters, the International Longshore Association on the East Coast, and dockworkers from abroad.

It is Bush administration fantasy that Teamsters will haul hot cargo worked by non-union workers, and ignorance to believe a West Coast work stoppage won't trigger ILA action on the East Coast. Recruiting replacement workers will be difficult, and, once on the job, their productivity will lag as they lack the skills and training of the ILWU. Nor will the ILWU wilt.

Priding itself in its international orientation, democratic practice and racial integration, this is a globally oriented union with historical and reciprocal alliances ensuring boycotts of scab-loaded ships. The timing of the Bush intervention interrupts the bargaining process, and its threats inflame workers' passions. Just why should workers bargain in good faith when the government has already forecast its position in case of a slowdown or a strike, and has sided with employers regardless of the outcome of negotiations?

The sane course for the Bush administration is to back off, leave well enough alone, allow the bargaining process to resume and retire to the sidelines, rather than interject itself into labor disputes with bluster and threats.

David J. Olson is professor of political science at the University of Washington and Harry Bridges Endowed Chair, Emeritus