With last year’s port lockout behind it and a new six-year
contract, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is
looking to prepare for the rough waters that still lie ahead.
Peter Olney, former ILWU director of organizing, and David
Arian, former ILWU president and current president of the Harry
Bridges Institute, spoke Tuesday afternoon at UCLA about issues the
ILWU now faces. The two shared perspectives on last year’s
negotiations, as well as insight into what the ILWU is doing
today.
The negotiations between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime
Association, an organization of shipping companies that controls 29
West Coast ports, were fundamentally different in their design than
typical negotiations, Arian said.
“We started on May 13 (2002) negotiating this contract …
the PMA would not negotiate with us,” Arian said.
“There was no negotiating that took place from the day we
started to the day we settled the contract.”
Part of the change, Arian said, could be attributed to the fact
that retailers are more powerful than ever as a force in maritime
economy.
“This contract was the first contract where maritime
capital was no longer the dominant force in determining the
outcome,” Arian said. “We were negotiating with the
West Coast Waterfront Coalition … all the retailers headed by
Walmart.”
Joe Radisich, the policy director for the Los Angeles branch of
the ILWU, said the PMA formed alliances with retailers and the Bush
administration in an attempt to force a pre-designed contract on
the workers.
“The Labor Department attorney came out to negotiations
… he laid out these scenarios. “˜We’ll invoke
Taft-Hartley … we’ll replace you with the
navy,'” Radisich said. “When it was done, he
said, “˜by the way, don’t let anybody know I’m
telling you this.”
The PMA tried to use the port lockout to cripple the union
financially, and after the lockout ended, the PMA took the ILWU to
court on claims that the workers were slowing down production. The
ILWU emerged victorious, with evidence that the workers had kept
production at the usual level.
A contract was eventually brokered, Olney said, but only after
months of bitter struggle between the union and the PMA.
“Big battles and social conflicts like the lockout on the
West Coast last fall are great instructors,” Olney said,
referring to the negotiations as a “wake-up call.”
Olney and Arian said one lesson the union learned was that it
needed to form stronger alliances and that it could not rely only
on itself in the future. A union with some of the highest-paid
workers in the nation, the ILWU developed an attitude that
separated themselves from other workers, Arian said.
“Our membership as a result of the lockout … learned a
valuable lesson ““ that you’re never untouchable and you
can’t win by yourself,” Arian said. “We
reaffiliated with the AFL-CIO … we never really needed anybody
else’s help before.”
Olney said forming new alliances was especially important in a
world where economics happens increasingly on a global level. Both
he and Arian said the ILWU will spend the next six years
strengthening alliances on both a national and international level,
as workers working on all the global ports have something very
important in common with the ILWU ““ they work for the same
companies.
“You’ll see a different ILWU … a regeneration of
our union,” Arian said. “The changes have to be
developing a port-by-port relationship with the key ports in the
world.”
The ILWU will also strive to work more with the mass media,
which was dominated by corporate views last year, Olney said.
“You would have sworn we were about to hit economic
Armageddon … there would be no toys under the trees at
Christmas,” Olney said. “The ILWU was being painted as
the grinch who stole Christmas.”
The port lockout, as portrayed by the media, Arian said, gave
the impression that the workers were at fault.
“The media kept saying it was a strike throughout the
whole struggle rather than a lockout,” Arian said. “A
total distortion of reality.”
Both Arian and Olney stated that one of the most fundamental
goals the union will be striving to reach in the future is to
maintain jurisdiction over the ports.
A point of conflict during last year’s contract
negotiations was that the PMA wanted to move new jobs created by
technology out of union control. To have union members working
these jobs, Olney said, is crucial to the survival and power of the
ILWU.
“We need to understand work that has anything to do with
the loading and unloading of cargo,” Olney said. “The
union needs to view that work as work and workers that need to be
organized. Employers desperately resist the organization of workers
because they understand the implications.”
Olney said the ILWU has played a crucial role in acting in
support of the working class worldwide, and that its continued
existence is of great importance to workers everywhere.
“There is no question that the preservation and strength
of the ILWU is absolutely crucial to labor,” Olney said.
“A strong ILWU is a strength and pillar for the whole labor
movement.”
The event was sponsored by the UCLA Institute of Industrial
Relations and the UC Institute for Labor and Employment.