Labor’s response to globalization was on the minds of a couple hundred ILWU members and supporters as they rallied at the longshore Local 10 hall Oct. 10.

Local 34 retiree Asher Harer.

With this year’s contract fight, ILWU members join the legions of dockworkers around the world who have been fighting privatization and casualization for more than a decade. Shipping and stevedoring companies have led the anti-worker drive, but governments everywhere have backed them up.

Edited by Harvey Schwartz, Curator, ILWU Oral History Collection

This article features the recollections of Louis Goldblatt, who was the union’s International secretary-treasurer for 34 years and an ILWU leader who made significant contributions to labor history. Goldblatt’s testimony focuses on the ILWU’s early days in the Islands, his own leadership role and his relationship with long-time Hawaii Regional Director Jack Hall. 

Kapalua Bay Hotel members will get a huge paycheck just in time for the holiday season. Most full-time employees will get back pay of an additional $200 to over $800 (before taxes and deductions), depending on their job classification. The extra money is the result of a new union contract which includes three wage increases that go back as far as July 2001.

ILWU members in the 2nd Congressional District are urged to vote for John F. Mink, who is running on November 30, 2002, in a special election to serve out the remainder of Patsy Mink’s term of office. The winner of that election will take Patsy’s place in the U.S. House of Representatives until January 2003, when a new term of office begins.

SAN FRANCISCO—ILWU and West Coast longshore employers reached a tentative agreement on technology on November 1, 2002, thus removing a major roadblock in negotiations for a new contract. The union had bottom line concerns about jurisdiction and the employers met those concerns. This is a major victory for the union and the first real progress made in these negotiations. Under an agreement with the federal mediator, details of the technology package will not be released until the entire contract package has been negotiated.

The bargain: Shipping companies have been able to implement some of the latest technology, the docks are part of one of the nation’s most productive industries, and workers have kept a voice on the job through their union.

HONOLULU—A select group of 92 ILWU members came away from the union’s Sixth Labor Institute with a stronger sense of unity as ILWU members, a renewed commitment to improving the conditions of working people, and the skills and knowledge to make it happen The institute was held from August 25 to 31, 2002, at Tokai University in Honolulu.

The labor institute is a week-long, intensive leadership training program and represents the ILWU’s commitment to education and democratic, rank-and-file unionism where the members run the union.

WAILUKU—Maui Division hosted the ILWU’s 10th Annual Slowpitch Softball tournament which was played at Keopuolani Park in Wailuku on September 28, 2002.

The first place team from Kauai included MVP Ronald “Blackie” Viquelia (front, second from left) and Most Homeruns and Most Runs winner Wendall Nonaka (standing, fourth from left).