Locked out and Shaft-Hartley’ed

by Tom Price

             The employers’ opening contract demands made on the ILWU in May, taken in whole or in part, were nothing less than a surrender document. And from the beginning, the PMA raised the specter of lockout if the union didn’t cave in.

When it didn’t get its concessions, Pacific Maritime Assn. locked out the ILWU Sept. 27. Eleven days later, federal judge William Allsup issued a temporary restraining order opening the ports and sending the union back to work. The Taft-Hartley process had begun.

“This is the first time in the history of the United States that a president has let an employer lock out workers in an extended quest to undermine the workers’ union—creating a phony crisis—and then rewarded that employer’s action with government intervention,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka.

From the very beginning the employers knew they had allies in Washington. Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge told the union any strike action would be a national security issue. Attorneys from the Dept. of Labor called with similar concerns. All PMA had to do was present its concessions and hold out until President Bush did its dirty work for it.

PMA’s initial proposal slashed jobs, cut medical benefits and undercut the hiring hall longshore workers struck coastwise to establish in 1934.

            The ILWU wasn’t about to roll over and play dead. But instead of confrontation, the union negotiated and offered counter-proposals. Meanwhile, the self-disciplined membership moved the massive amounts of commerce that forms the source of the employer’s profits. This went on beyond the July 1 contract expiration date.

The bosses claimed the union was slowing down over safety issues. After five fatalities on the docks in six months, the union was simply observing safety rules as established in the contract. Then PMA ordered more workers than the union could possibly supply and used that to bolster its claim of a slowdown.

The employers also added to the crunch by spreading panic among shippers—particularly retailers concerned with holiday sales—thus pressing them to step up schedules.

Traditionally the ILWU has moved passengers, perishables, mail and military cargos during any work stoppage—recognizing shipping as a lifeline to residents of Alaska and Hawaii and a key to national defense. The union stuck to this commitment during the lockout.

The PMA’s action stranded cruise ship passengers.  The union immediately made deals with the cruise lines to assist passengers and load cargo, and IBU-crewed tugs guided the ships out of the harbor.

Early on in negotiations, the ILWU had informed the Dept. of Defense that the union would continue working military cargo under any circumstances. Longshore Local 23 loaded military and consumer goods bound for Alaska Sept. 28. After days of negotiations, PMA agreed to release a ship carrying military goods from the Port of Oakland Oct. 4. It relented on shipments of essential goods to Hawaii the next day.

The union’s bargaining team members stayed at their posts. On Oct. 1 the union sent a five-person delegation to the federal mediator’s office in Oakland to discuss mediation. The PMA showed up with armed guards. The union abruptly left the discussions. International President Jim Spinosa called a press conference and expressed the union’s views bluntly before ten TV crews and a dozen reporters.

            “We feel that negotiations have taken a turn for the worse,” Spinosa told the press. “When we arrived at the mediation service today they had about 20 people with them along with armed thugs in the hallway with guns. This is totally unacceptable to us, this hasn’t happened since 1934 when employers tried to strong-arm our negotiations.”

            The reporters sent the union’s position to the world. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director Peter Hurtgen issued a statement that day describing the PMA’s use of armed security as “inappropriate and a breach of bargaining protocol, particularly when the meeting is under the auspices of the FMCS.”

            But the union never quit trying. On Oct. 2 the ILWU team huddled in the Harry Bridges Building and decided to accept the offer of federal mediation as the only means of getting PMA back to the table. Talks continued until Oct. 6, when the PMA rejected the union’s offer to extend the old contract for seven days to clear the docks. The Bush administration asked the union if it would agree to a 30-day contract extension, and the ILWU said yes. PMA refused, and Bush went to court Oct. 8 to end the lockout.

            While bargaining is in a state of flux as we go to press, a few things stand out.

PMA made a major media event out of its five-year wage proposal. In reality, the offer is both divisive and miserly. The bulk of the increases would go to a small group of workers. The rest would get no increases at all in the first three years of the contract, then 50 cents each year in the fourth and fifth year. That would give them raises of less than four percent over five years—an insult of an offer.

            PMA has also made much of the union’s supposed refusal to allow the ports use of advanced computer technology.           

The ILWU’s position on technology has been the same for 42 years. With the Mechanization and Modernization agreement, the union embraced technical changes, and management has the profits to prove it. But the contract always recognized that all new jobs created by technology would be union.

In this round of talks, the union offered to meet PMA halfway on computer technology. The union would allow information from outside computer systems to flow directly into terminal operating systems at West Coast ports. The information wouldn’t have to be “re-keyed” by ILWU marine clerks.

In exchange for this innovation, the ILWU asked for all the jobs that remain. These include any new jobs that technology creates, the terminal control and pre-gate supervisor jobs, and the work of planning ships, rails and container yards. Currently, the union performs about 50 percent of planning on the West Coast, with the other 50 percent done by non-union workers.

PMA rejected this proposal.

“They claim they want technology, but this is a mere guise to have others do our work,” Spinosa said. The lockout made PMA’s union-busting agenda clearer than ever.

President Harry Truman called the Taft-Hartley amendments to the 1935 National Labor Relations Act a “slave labor act.” He vetoed Taft-Hartley in 1947, but the Republican Congress overturned the veto. Taft-Hartley requires both the union and the employer to work under the conditions of the old contract for 80 days. But its provisions for fines, contempt of court citations and prison sentences for contract violations are aimed at workers.

The law can also force members to vote on management’s “last, best and final” offer. In democratically run unions like the ILWU, this provision goes to the heart of the union’s constitution. Bargaining teams are elected by members, the teams pound out an agreement and submit the union’s best deal for a vote.

Many members of longshore Local 10 share Truman’s take on Taft-Hartley. After a support rally on the Oakland docks Oct. 7, they held up homemade signs that read, “Taft law: plain ole slavery.”