BY BRIAN BELKNAP
Dockworkers' union leaders on the US west coast continue to negotiate with management for a new contract. The existing contract, which expired on July 1, is being extended on a day-to-day basis.
In 1999, when the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) agreed to work without a contract, it used "work-to-rule" tactics to slow the US ports to a crawl. The employers' organisation, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), caved in within days.
This time, there has been no work-to-rule. A strike would require a membership vote that would take at least two weeks to conduct.
"There's a growing sense of frustration among ILWU members that the PMA is stonewalling negotiations. There's a sense that progress is not being made and concern over loss of our wages, hours and working conditions", ILWU Local 10 business agent Jack Heyman told Socialist Worker.
Meanwhile, the PMA is pulling out the big guns. US homeland security chief Tom Ridge has made thinly veiled threats against the ILWU, warning that a strike would not be in the "national interest". In addition, proposed legislation would further hamper organising efforts on the docks.
All these threats have led to a "play it safe" strategy on the part of the union, which has focused on winning the support of the Democrats. Militants in the union like Heyman have a problem with that. "What they're trying to do is get legislation passed parallel to the Railway Labor Act which much more tightly regiments and, during these days of the so-called war against terrorism, militarises the docks. That's a real threat to trade unions on the waterfront", Heyman said.
"The way to counter that is not to stick your head in the sand. The way to counter a threat to trade union rights is to exercise trade union rights — and to bring in all those who are concerned about the loss of civil liberties under the guise of Bush's war against terrorism.
"The port workers' solidarity rally [on June 27] in Oakland was a step in that direction. Not only were there trade unionists at the rally, but there were people from the west Oakland community, and there were defenders of [political prisoner] Mumia [Abu-Jamal] at that rally too. All these groups are concerned with the loss of civil rights in this repressive period since September 11", Heyman explained.
Anti-labour laws in the US have been used by employers over the last 20 years to reduce some of the most powerful unions to mere shadows of their former selves. This has helped business to move to "lean production" methods — the reduction of inventories and the use of "just-in-time" production techniques in which parts are manufactured in other parts of the world and scheduled for delivery shortly before they are to be used. Essentially, cargo ships have become floating warehouses.
That's what makes the ILWU's fight so important. Robin Lanier, executive director of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition — which includes corporations like Wal-Mart, Target and Toyota — was blunt: "A strike, lockout or slowdown would be very damaging to shippers and the economy. But failing to address the problems at the terminals would be equally if not more costly over the long term."
"We have an enormous responsibility to negotiate an agreement without any work interruption on the waterfront", said Joseph Miniace, president and chief executive officer of the PMA. But the PMA has shown its true colours by trying to impose a speed-up during negotiations.
But if the militants in the ILWU have their way, the PMA won't get away with these attacks. "I think the sense among the rank and file right now is that it's time to take the handcuffs and the muzzles off, it's time to start fighting back against the PMA. It has so far been a one-sided propaganda war. For longshoremen, it's important to counter that verbal attack but it's even more important to exercise our power on the docks."
Workers around the world can be expected to offer solidarity with the ILWU when it does take action. ILWU members over the years have taken solidarity action to support workers from South Africa to Liverpool, England to Chile. The ILWU also refused to work the Columbus Canada, a ship loaded by scabs in Sydney's Port Botany during the 1998 maritime dispute.
[From Socialist Worker, weekly paper of the US International Socialist Organization. Visit <http://www.socialistworker.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 24, 2002.
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