Working men and women of the ILWU take on multinational corporations of the PMA
Nearly 2,000 fired-up longshore workers and their supporters crashed the grand opening party of Maersk Sealand’s new terminal in the port of Los Angeles on August 15. The facility is the largest terminal in the world, and Maersk Sealand is the second largest shipping company worldwide. The workers were there to demand that Maersk, one of the hard-line Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) members in the current mainland longshore negotiations, drop its push for concessions from union members. Maersk reportedly spent more than a half-million dollars on the party
PMA renegs on deals, calls Bush administration
Just as both sides were reaching agreement on the two biggest issues in negotiations, the employer group, the Pacific Maritime Association, drastically switched the terms, sabotaging the process. The employers’ next move was to call the Bush administration, which has threatened to send military personnel to seize and operate West Coast ports.
“Every time we get close to agreement, the PMA renegs,” ILWU International President James Spinosa said. “If the PMA wanted a deal, it was there on the table in front of them. But from day one of the negotiations the employers have shown that they clearly don’t want to bargain seriously. They want to create a crisis and get the government to force conditions on the union.”
On Saturday, Aug. 30 the PMA pulled its first bait and switch. After having said from the opening day of bargaining that the ILWU would get all the new jobs created by the introduction of new labor-saving computer technology, the PMA told the union flat out that there would be no new union tech jobs
The following day the employers did it again. After days of bargaining and give and take by both sides, the leaders of the union and the PMA agreed on a framework for the health benefits plan. But the next morning they changed the terms, demanding all the changes they want in the arbitration process or they would not sign off on the benefits package. “
Until Bush butts out of our negotiations, the legal collective bargaining process will never get a chance to work,” Spinosa said. “The government’s interference is inappropriate. The Bush administration has informed us that it has assembled in San Diego trained Navy dock workers from bases around the world and have them ready to move on us. In a time when we are supposed to be in a war against terrorism, why is Bush using the military against American workers involved in a legitimate labor dispute?”
To signal its displeasure with PMA chief negotiator Joe Miniace’s bait and switch tactics, the union Negotiating Committee declined to renew the old contract as it had on a day-today basis since it expired July 1.
[The Hawaii longshore contract extension remains in place on a dayto-day basis.]
“Without a contract all economic and job actions against the employers are legal and open as options for the union,” Spinosa said. “The ILWU Negotiating Committee will reassemble in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon and decide the union’s next move.”
ILWU officers left the negotiations Sunday at 11:00 a.m. to catch flights to Los Angeles to join the massive Labor Day march and rally attended by thousands of union members, Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, the second highest ranking officer in the American labor movement. The AFLCIO has made the ILWU contract negotiations a top priority for the labor movement, since a military intervention here would set a precedent unheard of in decades of American history. Scores of elected officials, from U.S. Senators and Congressional representatives, to governors, state legislators and port city mayors, have joined the ILWU in calling for the Bush administration to get out of the negotiating process and to not send the military to the ports.
