Surviving Adversity:

Edited by Harvey Schwartz

DON LIDDLE

In Feb. 1987, ILWU Local 37 voted to affiliate with the IBU as Region 37. Local 37, with headquarters in Seattle, was made up largely of Filipino fish processors who worked in Alaska. For some time the local had been functioning under bad financial circumstances. It needed some help the IBU could fairly easily provide–which was difficult for the International to provide–because we had a big membership and offices in Alaska. So we agreed to take Local 37 into the IBU.

The way it worked was that, for example, if 37 wanted some assistance in organizing, it would be expensive for the international to send somebody up there to help, but I’d be going to Alaska anyway. So I’d go up and do what I could, which was very agreeable with 37. It would be no additional expense to the IBU, except I might have to stay one extra night.

TERRI MAST

In 1981 the two officers of Local 37, Gene Viernes and my husband, Silme Domingo, were murdered. They were killed by racketeers who opposed their efforts to make our dispatch hall practices more honest and democratic. The murderers were directed by the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in the Philipines, which Gene and Silme had stood against.

I’d been part of the reform movement Gene and Silme represented. I was on the executive board. After Gene and Silme died we continued to foment the reforms. In 1982 I became the local’s president.

When Gene and Silme were killed we were part of the ILWU Alaska Council that was doing a big organizing drive on fish processors in Cordova and Dutch Harbor.  Unfortunately, both of those areas came to election shortly after the murders and we lost. The employers got the news up to those people immediately and scared them off.

Our industry also took advantage of some of our inexperience in the early 1980s. We came under attack like the broader labor movement at that time, too. We were hit with takeaway, concessionary bargaining.

Around ’86 we started to develop financial hardship. We’d had 1500 members, but then we lost a couple of plants, one through bankruptcy and some others through being sold to other companies. So we were losing some membership. The building we owned and were in at the time needed a lot of work, too. So there were a lot of reasons why we needed some back up.

We were then approached by Don Liddle about bringing us into the IBU. Becoming an IBU Region gave us added stability. It also gave a certain signal to our industry that we weren’t just out there on our own. Although we had that as an ILWU local, we now had a little bit different structure that strengthened our position.

There was a certain logic to a fish processing local going into the IBU. All of our fish processing plants were in Alaska. The IBU towboats brought in most of the Alaskan supplies and took the product out. So we felt there was a relationship there that could be beneficial to 37 if we were ever to do some real job actions. We would have that back up there.

Being in the IBU has been a positive thing for 37. Region 37 makes a contribution to the IBU as well. The region has a large minority base, and is economically from a different strata than most of the IBU. So 37’s needs and issues are a little bit different. That’s helped educate the other IBU workers about supporting all workers. There are immigrant rights and other things some of our folks would never even think about as necessarily being workers’ issues if 37 was not part of the IBU.

DON LIDDLE

In Feb. 1987, the IBU also got involved in a long strike with Crowley Maritime Corporation. Eight hundred people went out in a beef focused mostly on Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay. The issues were manning, pay, health and welfare, you name it. The employer wanted to go from five IBU members aboard ocean-going vessels to three, and from three Masters, Mates and Pilots members to two. Then Crowley wanted to merge classifications. For example, they wanted a classification such as able-bodied cook, who would sail as an able-bodied seaman but would also cook. So manning was by far the biggest issue, although they also wanted to cut wages.

Manning is a safety issue because you have fewer people aboard the vessel to make up tows. The links in the anchor chains they’re makin’ up tows with are 90 pounds each. That’s each link. I never realized this until I started dealin’ with this since I’m not a boatman. But it’s heavy, dangerous work because you have all that weight and you have equipment to work that weight. And that equipment can tear you apart.

So it was a huge safety issue. Where the people had been workin’ four hours on and then eight hours off, they would now be working six hours on and six off. So you could be at sea for up to 90 days by the contract–in reality it was usually 30 to 60 days–and in that whole period of time you would never be able to get eight hours of continuous sleep.

Although we got great help from the ILWU longshore division, 1987 was a hard and expensive strike for the IBU. We had to fly people around to picket different situations, then fly them home. As the strike dragged on it got bitter. It lasted nine months; you wondered if it would ever get over.

By the end of March, the Marine Engineer’s Beneficial Association in San Francisco told us they were no longer going to honor our picket lines. This was a big setback. Still, our members were strong and tough for months–it was an honor to be around them. They lasted until the bitter end. Then we did what we could to get ourselves well and fight again some other day. Now we’re nine years down the road, and the IBU is still here and as strong as ever.

BURRILL HATCH

My earliest job was workin’ for Foss Maritime in 1949, when I was 17. We were running up to Alaska to bring down gold ore from a mine in Canada. We barged it down to Tacoma Smelter. I was an oiler on a tug with a 14 man crew, which is extinct now. That included officers, unlicensed personnel, and a cook and messman.

In the ’50s I worked for Chicago Milwaukee Railroad. They used to have the last steam tug in Puget Sound. It towed rail car barges from Seattle to Port Townsend. I was an able bodied seaman on that tug–I did maintenance and stood wheel watch–until it was taken out of service about 1955. Then I went to work with Foss Maritime and soon ended up on Chicago Milwaukee-owned rail car barges being operated by Foss. I worked there probably 15 years. I was always IBU; I only belonged to one union my whole life.

About 1971 I became national sect.-treas. of the IBU and held that job for seven and a half years. Then I was out of office for 18 months and worked as a tankerman. In 1980 I came back into office as Puget Sound Regional Director. That was my job at the start of the Crowley strike of Feb. 1987. As required by my position, I was a key figure on our negotiating committee and did a lot of the negotiating.

In 1987 the IBU officers went on the same strike pay that the members were getting. After two months we went on the same kind of austerity program as the men did. That was a good solid way to be, because the strike lasted for months.

Don Liddle left office before the strike was over. I’d been speaking for the union and ended up having to conclude the strike myself. Crowley Maritime told me, “Either you send those people back to work or they’re all fired.” In addition, about 40 of our people went back to work for Crowley by themselves, crossing the picket line. So I capitulated. I put it before the membership and they voted to go back to work.

After the strike, under the ocean and coastwise agreements many of our vessels were reduced from eight to six men. On the inside boats that stay in the harbor they were reduced from six to five.  Under the new system, the engineer would have to come out on deck during the captain’s watch and handle lines. This is not what engineers think they should do, and I agree. Employers call that economy and meeting the competition. I call that by a different name.

Still, in 1987 I was not going to lose a whole company, nor was I going to just sit there and watch all our Crowley people get replaced. It was just one of the difficult situations you find yourself in by being a union officer. You have to make those decisions sometimes.