For more information, please visit alcatrazunion.com.<\/p>\r\n\r\nStop Union Busting on the Waterfront\r\n\r\n
For the past two months Bay Area maritime union members have been picketing daily in a struggle \r\n\r\nto maintain union wages and working conditions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Terry MacRae's Alcatraz Cruises (a subsidiary of Hornblower) refuses to hire IBU and MM&P \r\n\r\nmembers who have worked on the Alcatraz ferry since 1973.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union was born out of the 1934 San Francisco Maritime \r\n\r\nand General Strike.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Since then, the ILWU has maintained good wages and working conditions on the entire Bay Area \r\n\r\nwaterfront. The current assault by Hornblower is a direct attack at the heart of ILWU jurisdiction \r\n\r\nand demands a powerful response!<\/p>\r\n\r\n
ILWU Local 10 voted to hold a port-wide stop-work meeting and port shutdown in solidarity with \r\n\r\nthe IBU & MMP workers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
This is call for all union members and their allies to join us for the march at 9:15 AM and on \r\n\r\nthe picket line at 10 AM on December 9.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
An Injury to One is an Injury to All!<\/p>\r\n\r\n
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n If you live outsisde of the San Francisco Bay Area<\/strong> - visit this page.<\/p>\r\n\r\n San Francisco has been a solidly union town since the historic 1934 maritime strike of sailors \r\n\r\nand longshoremen which turned into a citywide General Strike after two strikers were killed by \r\n\r\npolice. The strikers' slogan then was, \"An injury to one is an injury to all.\" Now, every July 5, \r\n\r\n\"Bloody Thursday,\" West Coast ports close from the Canadian to the Mexican border to commemorate \r\n\r\nthe six union members killed during the militant strike that forged the organized labor \r\n\r\nmovement.<\/p>\r\n\r\n But is San Francisco still a union town?<\/p>\r\n\r\n For the first time since that 1934 strike, a nonunion maritime company has begun operating on \r\n\r\nthe Embarcadero. Hornblower Cruises and Events, owned by Terry McRae, was awarded a 10-year \r\n\r\ncontract by the National Park Service (NPS) last year to provide ferry service to Alcatraz Island. \r\n\r\nSome 50 workers, represented by the Inlandboatmen's Union (IBU) and the Masters, Mates and Pilots \r\n\r\nUnion (MMP), with decent working conditions, wages and family health insurance, lost their jobs. \r\n\r\nThey've been picketing, along with their supporters, at Pier 33 on the Embarcadero for the past \r\n\r\ntwo months, as McRae refuses to negotiate.<\/p>\r\n\r\n In response, the San Francisco longshore union voted to shut down all Bay Area ports and hold a \r\n\r\nstop-work meeting and mass picket in solidarity with its sister IBU local, which is affiliated to \r\n\r\nthe International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). In 2003, the Los Angeles longshore union \r\n\r\ntook similar action, shutting down the largest port in the United States and marching in \r\n\r\nsolidarity with striking grocery-store workers. In 2000, when the jobs of Charleston, S.C., \r\n\r\nlongshore workers had been taken over by a nonunion stevedore operator, they, much as the Alcatraz \r\n\r\nferry workers, protested by picketing. They were attacked by riot police with many injured and \r\n\r\nfive arrested. The ILWU went to their defense. Known as the Charleston 5 campaign, it became a \r\n\r\ncause celebre of the American labor movement and is one of the few shining examples of labor's \r\n\r\npower in recent years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n Much has changed since the days when a freighter's cargo was \"hand-jived\" by gangs of \r\n\r\nlongshoremen or when ferries would carry passengers from Oakland to San Francisco. \r\n\r\nContainerization and bridges have changed the face of the waterfront.<\/p>\r\n\r\n One of the most significant measures of change, perhaps, is the integration of women into the \r\n\r\nworkforce. Nowadays, the \"first lady\" in the Port of Oakland is a black mother who operates a \r\n\r\ncontainer crane. And the regional director of the IBU is Marina Secchitano, who in the fight to \r\n\r\ndefend her union and her members' jobs, refuses to back down in the face of corporate \r\n\r\nintimidation. Twice arrested by police, Secchitano is determined to achieve justice for her union \r\n\r\nmembers, who have been diligently working the Alcatraz Ferry since it began operations in 1973 and \r\n\r\nnow find themselves replaced, like the Charleston longshoremen.<\/p>\r\n\r\n While Hornblower maintains a callous disregard for the lives of the workers who made the \r\n\r\nAlcatraz run into the success that it has become, the company portrays itself as environmentally \r\n\r\nconscious. U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilkins has ruled that the Service Contract Act, \r\n\r\nwhich requires a successor of a federal contract to pay the same level of wages and benefits as \r\n\r\nthe previous employer, applies to Hornblower. But who today believes that justice can be achieved \r\n\r\nthrough government agencies and courts? Certainly not when judges rule that corporations can rip \r\n\r\nup with impunity labor contracts that provide for workers' pensions, health benefits and wages, as \r\n\r\nhappened to workers at Bethlehem Steel and United Airlines. Some judges have barred workers from \r\n\r\nstriking in response.<\/p>\r\n\r\n In this atmosphere of one-sided class war, if unions are to survive as independent \r\n\r\norganizations that represent the democratic will of workers, then they will have to exercise their \r\n\r\npower -- even if that means defying unjust laws. That's what the civil rights movement did in the \r\n\r\n'60s and the labor movement did before that in the '30s.<\/p>\r\n\r\n If nonunion companies, such as Hornblower can operate with federal blessing, then others will \r\n\r\nfollow and the days of unions on the San Francisco waterfront are numbered.<\/p>\r\n\r\n Is an injury to one still an injury to all? If so, will unions take the necessary action? That \r\n\r\nis the challenge of organized labor today.<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.alcatrazunion.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"In a show of solidarity ILWU Local 10 voted for a port-wide shutdown in support of the IBU & MMP workers.\r\n\r\nThis is call for all union members and their allies to join us on the picket line Pier 31\/33, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, December 9, 2006 at 10 AM.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2006\/12\/190154.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}\r\n
\r\n\r\nEditorial, by Jack Heyman, ILWU Local 10 - The challenge to labor\r\n\r\n