UNITED STATES: Bush, employers take at aim dockers

October 16, 2002
Issue 

BY SHANE BENTLEY

US President George Bush has thrown his weight behind the bosses of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) in their struggle to break the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) which covers 10,500 US west coast dock workers across 29 ports.

On October 7, Bush invoked the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, allowing a federal court judge to order workers back to work for an 80-day "cooling-off" period. On October 9, US district court Judge William Alsup of San Francisco ordered that the ports open temporarily for work.

"By invoking Taft-Hartley against the longshore workers, Bush is effectively declaring war on the working class here and the Iraqi people simultaneously", ILWU Local 10 business agent Jack Heyman said.

Taft-Hartley injunctions have been used in 11 dock strikes since 1947. Eight of these, including the last in 1971 when Richard Nixon quashed a 134-day ILWU walkout, saw work stop again after the 80-day "cooling-off" period.

The federal court injunction brings to an end the PMA's 10-day lock out of ILWU members, which saw nearly 200 ships stranded off the coast. Bush is the first president to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act during an employers' lockout.

The PMA initially locked out ILWU members for 36 hours on September 27. The dockers returned to work on September 29, only to be locked out again hours later.

Under the terms of the court injunction, ILWU members will have to work under conditions imposed by the PMA. The employers have been imposing speedups and unsafe conditions since the union's contract expired on July 1.

Government officials previously warned ILWU leaders that any strike would "threaten national security".

The stakes are high. West coast ports include four of the top six US container terminals. US$260 billion of cargo moved through these 29 ports last year. The bosses' lock outs were costing the US economy at least $1 billion each day.

On the surface, the dispute centres on the introduction of new technology. The PMA aims to eliminate half of all clerical jobs by moving to a computerised system.

Both parties had previously come to an agreement on technology and jobs. ILWU leaders are willing to forego around 630 jobs that will be lost due to new technology. A tentative agreement had been reached before the PMA reneged in early October, causing the breakdown of talks.

The ILWU wants the jobs created by new technology to go to ILWU members. The PMA rejects this.

The real aim of the maritime bosses is not simply the introduction of new technology, but the destruction of the militant ILWU.

In employers' sights is the removal of the union's hiring hall, which affords ILWU members the freedom to decide each morning which task and which boss they will work for.

ILWU leaders cite Bush's threats to bring the army in to break any strike in order to discourage dock workers from taking strike action. The focus instead has been on rallies away from the ports, consumer boycotts and appeals to the Democratic Party support. This has lead to increasing frustration among rank and file ILWU members.

In San Francisco, debates over ILWU strategy came out into the open when Heyman issued a leaflet critical of it. "The ILWU leadership should have a plan for job action to challenge PMA", the leaflet stated. "The fact is there is none because the ILWU tops are paralyzed. We've organized rallies at federal buildings, rallies in front of PMA headquarters, rallies near the docks, 'letters of support' from politicians against government intervention... Our members are rallied out. It's time for action on the docks. That's were our power is, at the point of production."

A rank-and-file newsletter — the Maritime Workers Monitor — has also appeared, with articles explaining what is wrong with appealing to the Democrats and enforcing contract safety rules to fight employer speed-ups. Five ILWU members have been killed on the job in the past six months.

The ILWU has received expressions of solidarity from across the US and internationally. The union has already won pledges of support from the International Longshoremens Association (ILA) which covers US east coast longshore workers and the Teamsters (truck drivers) union.

Waterfront unions in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Finland, Estonia, Peru, Columbia, Chile, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan and South Africa as well as the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) are backing the ILWU. The ITF has asked waterfront workers world-wide to single out PMA members Maersk, Hanjin, APL and CSX Lines in any legal action to support US west coast longshore workers.

Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) support includes a joint MUA/Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union mining division delegation of 13 people that left for the US west coast on October 4.

In an October 9 press release MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin was quick to quash media reports of possible MUA industrial action in support of the ILWU. The MUA has instead encouraged members to place "Hands off the ILWU" stickers on containers bound for the US West Coast and to send protest emails to PMA companies.

The ILWU motto is "an injury to one is an injury to all". In recent years, the ILWU has closed the ports for a day in solidarity with death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and the 1999 demonstrations against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle.

ILWU members consistently refuse to work scab-loaded ships. In 1995, they refused to unload the Neptune Jade, a container loaded by scabs in England during the Liverpool dockers' dispute. In 1998, ILWU members refused to handle cargo on the Columbus Canada, which had been loaded by Patricks' scabs in Australia.

The breaking of the ILWU would be a grave loss to workers in the US and around the world.

From Green Left Weekly, October 16, 2002.
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