Union Dockers Become the Good Guys
As Shippers Continue Port Shutdown
By Harry Kelber

Labor Talk for October 9, 2002;

In a complete reversal of roles, the Pacific Maritime Assn., representing 87 shipping lines and terminal operators, shut down 29 West Coast ports on Sept. 30, while locked-out members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union continued to load and unload cargo for non-PMA companies and under special employer exemptions.

The PMA initiated the lockout in reaction to what it called an ILWU slowdown. The union responded that it was complying with the safety rules under the expired contract and that five of its members had died on the job this year because of hazardous working conditions.

The military cargo and the vital shipments to Alaska and Hawaii should never have been the collateral damage of PMA’s senseless assault on the national economy, said ILWU International President James Spinosa.

These are cargoes the ILWU has always worked even when we were on strike. We applaud the fact that PMA has finally relented and let these ships go. We are now asking them to do the same for the ships bound for the Pacific island American territory of Guam, which faces the same shortages as Hawaii.

The union is also calling on the PMA to allow its members to move perishable products, including the grain of American farmers, now left sitting on the docks or on scores of ships idling outside the ports.

Until now, PMA’s CEO, Joseph Miniace, has refused the union request. The union charges that last January the PMA took out a $200 million line of credit from banks for the express purpose of being able to last through an extended lockout.

It says that early this year, Robin Lanier, head of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition, which represents hundreds of companies, including Wal-Mart, Target, Toyota, Nike and Panasonic, told them to prepare for a two-week lockout.

As the lockout continues, there are growing fears that it could have a crippling effect on the fragile economies of Asia and lead to layoffs at U.S. companies that depend on just-in-time shipments from overseas’ suppliers.

An assembly plant in the San Francisco Bay area, run jointly by General Motors and Toyota, had to shut down for lack of parts from Japan and laid off 5,100 workers.

Employer groups, representing, retailers, farmers, truckers and manufacturers, have made strong appeals to President Bush to end the lockout by ordering an 80-day cooling off period under the 1947 Taft Hartley Act, but thus far, he has resisted.

Early this year, when it appeared that the ILWU might order a walkout of its 10,500 members, Bush’s aides talked about using federal troops to crush a work stoppage. The AFL-CIO is strongly opposed to government intervention in the dock dispute, especially the use of the anti-labor Taft-Hartley law, which erodes collective bargaining in favor of employers.

Both sides agree that the issue is how the new technology that speeds cargo handling will be introduced into the ports and its impact on the workers and their union. 

The PMA wants complete control of the new jobs that will be required, including its right to outsource work to non-union companies. The ILWU is willing to accept the new technology in exchange for which it wants jurisdiction over any new jobs that the technology creates, the terminal control and pre-gate supervisors jobs, and the work of planning ships, rails and container yards. The dispute involves about 400 mostly clerical jobs.

In 1960, both East Coast and West Coast longshore unions signed a historic agreement accepting the new container technology, in return for which they received significant concessions from the shipping and stevedore companies, including jurisdictional control of the port jobs.

This understanding has existed for 40 years until now, when the PMA is intent on downgrading union power. The last major strike at West Coast ports was in 1971. It lasted 134 days.

It is not clear what the PMA hopes to accomplish by its lockout, which is costing shippers and companies affected by the shutdown about $1 billion a day and is becoming an increasing threat to the national economy as it continues. 

ILWU members are ready and willing to go back to work at full strength, but they want a fair contract. There¹s no point in extending the lockout further, and when it ends, the PMA will be back to square one. The wiser course is to come to terms with the union and go ahead with modernizing the ports. The sooner, the better.