Talks get tough and the tough get going

Longshore caucus backs plans to turn up heat for a deal

by Steve Stallone

            As the most contentious ILWU longshore negotiations in many years dragged on, the Longshore Caucus assembled in San Francisco July 22-26 to review the state of the talks and give the union’s Negotiating Committee further direction. The Caucus endorsed the Committee’s efforts to get a deal at the table, and stepped up action plans to make that happen.

            The Caucus had been scheduled months in advance in the hope that by late July there would be a tentative agreement for the 85 delegates from all the ports on the Coast to review. But as International President Jim Spinosa told the meeting in his opening report, the employer group, the Pacific Maritime Association, did not come to the table to seek an agreement. Instead, emboldened by government backing, PMA demanded a series of outrageous concessions. The Bush administration has threatened to strip the ILWU’s legal rights to strike and to bargain collectively by seeking special legislation and sending federal troops to the docks.

            “It was apparent right from the first day of bargaining that the employers were on a mission. They hit us in every direction you can possibly be hit in,” Spinosa said. “One of the main obstacles, though, that wasn’t there in the 1999 bargaining was the government.

            “They are telling us that not only do they have Taft-Hartley available, there is a possibility they will come after us with legislation that will move us like they did the railroad workers,” he said.  “They are telling us we are too strong, our union is too strong and monopolizes the West Coast, we have too much strength, we are controlling too much economy with one union.”

            The Negotiating Committee summarized the last two months of fruitless bargaining for the Caucus and then reviewed the PMA’s latest proposal, made in response to the union’s July 17 offer. That offer echoed the historic Modernization and Mechanization Agreement of 1960 that set out how containerization would work on West Coast docks.

The July 17 proposal granted the employers use of the technology that would allow for a free flow of electronic data from outside sources into the terminal operating systems. This would eliminate about 30 percent of the clerks’ work, saving the employers more than $100 million per year in labor costs on top of the increased productivity the system would bring. In return, in the spirit of the M&M agreement, the union demanded all the clerk jobs the new technology would create, the return of all outsourced vessel, rail and yard planning work, the jobs operating the employers’ off-dock container yards and the work draying the containers from the port to those yards.

            The employers have consistently claimed this new technology as their top negotiating priority—but they refused to meet the union’s step towards a deal with one of their own. Instead, PMA’s counter-proposal accepted the new technology, but flatly refused to give the union the planning and off-dock facility work.

PMA also fell short on maintenance of benefits, the union’s number one priority for this contract. The PMA proposed creation of a new two-tier health plan. New longshore workers would only have access to the HMO coverage and never have the option to choose their own doctors under the indemnity PPO and 80/20 plan, and all members would eventually lose that option. PMA also proffered insultingly meager wage and pension increases for active longshore workers, with no increase at all in pension rates for current retirees and widows.

            The Negotiating Committee unanimously recommended a “no” vote on the proposal and the Caucus unanimously concurred. After further discussion and agreement on the direction the Negotiating Committee should take when talks resume, the Caucus showed its complete support for the Negotiating Committee—again unanimously—by empowering the Committee to call for a strike vote by the rank and file when and if it feels that’s necessary during the course of bargaining.

            The Safety Negotiating Committee reported that it has been similarly stymied in its talks with the PMA. The employers have been using liability as an excuse for not placing defibrillators on the docks, according to committee chair Mike Freese (Local 13). Defibrillators administer electric shocks to re-start the heart after a heart attack. They can be lifesavers for workers who otherwise would have to wait for emergency vehicles to crawl through miles traffic jams to reach the docks.

The Safety Committee is also developing programs to abate the hazards of diesel emissions in the workplace. On the issue of port security, the employers are also stalling and waiting for the government to impose regulations rather than negotiate them.

            The Coast Legislative Action Committee’s Max Vekich (Local 24) reported on the group’s work with the union’s lobbying staff in Washington, D.C. They are trying to restrict the worker background checks in the pending port security legislation, and strategizing with the union’s friends in Congress to blunt Bush administration intervention into the longshore negotiations.

Employer-orchestrated government pressure on the negotiations heightens the importance of this political work, yet members in many locals have not paid their $50 contributions to the union’s Political Action Fund. Since such contributions by law must be voluntary, the Caucus decided that when delegates go back to their home ports, they should stress the urgency of political work and encourage them to pony up.

Ray Familathe (Local 13) and Brad Clark (Local 4) reported on their international trips. First they went to the International Dockworkers Council’s European Section meeting in Piraeus, Greece. There the dockers took two hours to listen to Familathe and Clark report on the latest news about the ILWU negotiations. The European dockers pledged to give whatever help they could.

From there Familathe and Clark went to Japan to see the dockers of Zenkowan and Zenkokukowan. Together the two unions donated $12,000 to the ILWU’s struggle. The Japanese dockers told Familathe and Clark they were sending letters to the Japanese shipping companies stating their full support for the ILWU. They also gave their visitors a large red Zenkowan flag to be hung in the conference room where negotiations take place to remind the employers of Japanese support for the ILWU.

Realizing that bargaining will not move as long as the PMA has the Bush administration doing its dirty work, the Negotiating Committee established a Public Relations Committee from among its members to begin a public and political campaign aimed at getting the government out of the negotiations. The union will tap a member in each area to team up with an AFL-CIO field staffer and help coordinate the national campaign. In Southern California that coordinator will be Mike Ponce (Local 13), in Northern California it will be Kevin Gibbons (Local 10), in the Columbia River area it will be Jim Daw (Local 8) and in the Puget Sound area it will be Rudy Finne (Local 19) and Vance Lelli (Local 23).

On the Tuesday of the week-long gathering AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson addressed the Caucus. She told the delegates the AFL-CIO believes the ILWU’s contract negotiations matter to the entire American labor movement.

            “Your struggle affects not just the West Coast,” she said. “What’s happening in your industry could happen to every working man and woman in the country. It’s your fight and our fight.”

            Chavez-Thompson pledged the AFL-CIO would lend whatever staff and resources the ILWU needs to “achieve the contract you are entitled to.” She said she would proudly march with the delegates and the union’s officers in the demonstration at PMA’s San Francisco downtown headquarters the next day.

            The delegates left the Caucus to return to their home ports and update members at the upcoming local meetings. Negotiations will resume Aug. 13.