ILWU longshore members on Oahu hold a stop work ratification meeting on January 31. The longshore negotiating committee (left) explains the terms of the contract before members vote.

The ILWU will hold its 32nd International Convention this year in San Francisco from April 28-May 2. The delegates you have elected from your locals will be entrusted with setting the direction our union will take in the next three years.

Attack on our nation’s transportation workers

The year 2002 will become a major part of the ILWU legend. Looking back, it is difficult to fathom how the ILWU remains strong given the array of forces lined up to destroy this union.

HILO—Gusty winds and heavy rain failed to dampen the spirits of several hundred Hawaii Division members and retirees who packed the ILWU Hall in Hilo for a night of fellowship, tasty food, and hot music on February 15, 2003. They gathered
for the 26th Annual Recognition Night to celebrate and a select group of ILWU units for their outstanding contributions to their membership and to the trade union movement.

HOLLYWOOD, Fl (PAI)—Labor Secretary Elaine Chao thought she had an open and honest session with the nation’s union leaders Feb. 26. Putting it mildly, they disagreed.

After the closed-door meeting the conservative Republican Labor Secretary held with the AFL-CIO Executive Council in Hollywood, Fla.,federation President John J. Sweeney took to the press conference podium and called the session “unbelievable.”

In his Christmas Day message, Pope John Paul II called on all religions and on all people of good will to avoid war and build
peace instead. In particular he talked about the building conflict in the Middle East. In his New Year’s address in January the
Pope again repeated that military force must be the very last option and a war would be “a defeat for humanity.”

Noriko “Nikki” Sawada Bridges Flynn, former ILWU President Harry Bridges’ wife for the last 31 years of his life, died Feb. 7 at age 79 from complications of a chronic illness. But Nikki was much more than the spouse of a legendary labor leader—she was a civil rights activist and poet in her own right, an orator with quick wit and a sharp tongue.

A statewide longshore industry caucus was held in Honolulu on March 14-15, 2002. Forty-five leaders from Hawaii, Maui, Kauai and Oahu Divisions participated in this meeting to draft and discuss negotiation proposals.

“In unity there is strength.” Or sometimes we say— “United we stand, divided we fall.” We have a lot of different ways of expressing this idea that unity and strength go together. Even our own slogan—“An injury to one is an injury to all”—is based on this principle. “The union makes us strong.” This is a concept that working people have no problem understanding. They understand that a single worker is powerless to bargain with his or her employer for good wages and working conditions.

On the eve of the Longshore Contract Caucus the employers threw down the gauntlet—Pacific Maritime Association CEO Joseph Miniace, in a story planted in the shipping industry publication the Journal of Commerce, declared he wanted major changes in work rules and a complete revamping of the arbitration process or he would lock out the union.