Socialist Action /February 2002
Will ILWU Keep its Jobs?
By CHARLES WALKER
Longshore and port workers on the nation's coasts are at the beginning
of an "historic" period, but only some of the history-in-the-making
may be to their liking.
While there's new hope that as many as 50,000 port truckers at long last
may be organized by the Teamsters Union, escaping a hardscrabble, insecure
work-life, there are renewed fears that port "modernization" will
once again claim more good-paying longshore jobs-as happened under the "historic"
mechanization agreement the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers
Union (ILWU) forged with shipping bosses in 1961.
The Teamsters Union (IBT), the International Longshore Association (ILA),
and the ILWU announced in December a mutual jurisdiction pact "in the
face of continuing onslaughts from the employers and for the right of the
most exploited workers on the waterfront-the port drivers-to organize to
secure their future," writes James Spinosa, ILWU president.
"[W] e have committed to mutual solidarity to make sure our ports
are union operations. ... The three unions will establish a Jurisdictional
Resolution Committee to resolve any disputes that may arise" (Dispatcher,
November 2001).
Organizing port drivers
Labor commentator Harry Kelber points out that port drivers, who are
often classified as "independent contractors" and are thereby
denied even the restricted rights allowed workers and unions under labor
law, "average $7 to $8 an hour, without health care or pension benefits.
They work under hazardous conditions, but dare not complain because they
fear being fired and blacklisted. They are required to perform health-threatening
tasks, such as cleaning toxic materials from containers, typically without
proper safety equipment and often without pay.
"Port drivers are routinely instructed to drive overweight loads
onto public roads," said George Cashman, director of the Teamsters
Port Division. "They see shipping lines cut corners by using the same
trailers to haul food and toxic chemicals, often without fumigation. Drivers
who dare to blow the whistle on such practices find themselves unemployed."
While there's no doubt that the port drivers urgently need unionization,
there are doubts that the Teamsters leadership can do the job. And union
leadership, more than tough bosses and unfair laws, may determine the outcome
of the IBT's waterfront organizing efforts. In part, the fears about the
leadership stem from the Teamsters' inability to successfully organize Overnite,
one of the nation's larger trucking firms.
Shortly after IBT President James P. Hoffa took office in 1999, he converted
the ongoing organizing drive at Overnite into a high profile strike. At
the time it was thought that Hoffa partly intended the Overnite strike as
an answer to skeptics' reservations about a union being headed by someone
who had never held an elected union post.
Hoffa's strike strategy seemed designed to get contracts at Overnite
locations that had voted for the Teamsters, and to use those contracts to
attract other Overnite truckers. To date, however, the union has failed
to get a single contract, let alone enough contracts to inspire a rush by
Overnite workers to join-up.
While the union still maintains a nominal strike against Overnite, hardly
anyone gives the strike a chance of success. Moreover, the organizing momentum
at Overnite that the Teamsters' Ron Carey administration attained has been
lost.
Of course, the union leaders and staff may have learned some lessons
from the Overnite misfortune that will help them out at the ports. But clearly,
port drivers would have better reason to greet the New Year if Hoffa's leadership
had turned the trick at Overnite. Hopefully, the aid and support of the
longshore unions will tip the scales in the port drivers' favor.
ILWU negotiations and jobs
But will the three unions' alliance give the ILWU workers enough clout
to get a new contract without losing more jobs?
When their current contract ends in July, the longshore workers may face
the choice of fighting on picket lines to save waterfront jobs for the next
generation of workers, or resigning themselves to seeing their diminished
numbers shrink again. The answer the ILWU dockers give is also likely to
impact ILA East Coast and Gulf Coast longshore workers, which like the ILWU
workers are fewer in number after corporate mechanization.
The corporate bosses say the docks need still more labor-saving technology.
They say that the Pacific ports are running out of room, and without technology
to increase waterfront capacity, business will be lost to Mexico and Canada.
The bosses' agenda for a new contract was laid out in the Washington
Post on Jan 5. by their labor reporter, Frank Swoboda: "The shippers'
association wants the ILWU to agree to computerize and modernize its operations
to allow a quicker turnaround of cargoes. ... PMA [Pacific Maritime Assn.,
the main bosses' group] officials say all job reductions would be made through
attrition and that no one would face a wage cut."
Swoboda writes that "in Hong Kong, the use of computer technology
means the docks can handle an average of 15,000 cargo containers per acre
because they can move cargo so quickly. That compares with the West Coast's
average of 3000 cargo containers."
Swoboda says that "ILWU president James Spinosa declined to talk
about the upcoming negotiations." But an unidentified ILWU official
is quoted as saying that the bosses' pleas for more technology are "an
attempt to bust the union."
ILWU President Spinosa may just be keeping his cards close to his vest
when he rightly refuses to talk to reporters about the upcoming contract
talks. In any event, there is no sign that he's initiated a campaign to
prepare the ILWU ranks to buy into the bosses' scheme for more technology
and fewer jobs.
The Bridges legacy
Unlike Spinosa, Harry Bridges campaigned long and hard to get the union's
ranks to accept increased technology on the job and then approve the "historic"
1961-66 Mechanization and Modernization Agreement. Bridges' tactics and
methods to get the dockworkers' support for the agreement are recounted
in "Harry Bridges, The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the U.S.,"
by Charles P. Larrowe.
As early as the 1950s, the bosses had told Bridges that cost pressures
were going to mount to the point "where we were going to have a showdown
battle." "Early in 1957," writes Larrowe, "...Bridges
began talking at a coastwide meeting about the desirability of an about-face
on mechanization."
A later union report asked, "Do we want to stick with our present
policy of guerrilla resistance to the machine or do we want to adopt a more
flexible policy in order to buy specific benefits in return?"
After three years the union and PMA negotiators had a tentative agreement
ready for a vote. It passed, 6832 to 3695. Wages, pensions, and benefits
were raised, and moreover, "A longshoreman now had a guaranteed wage
for the life of the contract."
But, says Larrowe, "If the workers benefited handsomely, the employers
came off even better. They were able to reassert their authority by getting
rid of unneeded workers on the job, they could load a cargo sling to capacity
rather than having to stop at the 2100-pound limit the union had held them
to since 1937, and they could put in labor-saving machines. When the contract's
five-and-a-half-years were up, they had paid $29 million, ... and they had
saved $200 million."
"Longshoremen's pay adds up to slightly more than 1 percent of the
cargo value they handle-costs that are 'negligible,' a top PMA official"
told the Post's Swoboda. Still, the waterfront bosses want to eliminate
even more union jobs, blaming competition.
As in 1961, they'll buy the jobs-if as in 1961, the price is right! Or
put more precisely, if the next generation is left to pay the price.
The unionization drives of the 1930s raised the living standards and
the job security of the following generation. What will this generation
of unionists leave to the next generation of workers?
More specifically, how many union jobs will today's dock workers hand
down to the next generation's job seekers? That's what the dock bosses are
looking to find out in this year's "historic" negotiations.
Socialist Action /February 2002 |