On August 9th, on behalf of the Port\r\nLabor Relations Committee, President Herald Ugles tabled a\r\n\"Continuous Operation Document\" between the\r\nlocal union and Stevedoring Services of America Terminals, which will\r\neliminate unit breaks at Terminal 18 in the Port of Seattle. The\r\nmotion to adopt the new work rules, in exchange for at most five more\r\njobs on container operations—although the memorandum's language\r\nitself is so vague that even this slight gain in manning is not even\r\nfor sure—was passed by a slim majority at the tiny and\r\nunrepresentative meeting.<\/p>\r\n
The underhanded tactics used by the\r\nUgles\/Manwell\/Ventoza regime to ensure the membership meeting would\r\nbe tiny and then to blackmail those members who did show up into\r\npassing the give-back measure have been the subject of lively debate\r\naround the Seattle waterfront in the days since the August 9th\r\nmeeting.<\/p>\r\n
These new work rules will make it\r\nbasically impossible for semi tractor drivers and other equipment\r\noperators on gangs to communicate with each other regarding safety\r\ncode and contract violations and thereby keep them from working\r\ntogether to enforce their contract rights on the job.<\/p>\r\n
Moreover, these new rules clearly\r\nviolate the provisions of Section 2.3 of the Pacific Coast Longshore\r\nContract Document, paving the way for a further erosion of the\r\nCoastwise master contract and raising the specter of port-by-port or\r\ncompany-by-company agreements, just in time for early Coastwise\r\ncontract talks, set to begin early in 2008.<\/p>\r\n
Waterfront rumors have it that SSA will\r\nbegin implementing these new work rules today, Wednesday, August\r\n15th.<\/p>\r\n
To make matters even worse, had a\r\nsingle brave Local 19 member not called for the quorum and thereby\r\nshut down the stop-work meeting, the next thing on the agenda was to\r\nhave been a Port LRC motion to install computer screens in the\r\ndispatch hall—an ominous step towards the electronic\r\ndispatching of longshoremen's work. This narrowly-averted motion\r\nwould have represented a first step towards the total dismantling of\r\nthe union hiring hall.<\/p>\r\n
Unions around the world admire the ILWU\r\nfor its democratic hiring hall and its tradition of effective job\r\ncontrol, in which dispatchers are elected by the workers themselves,\r\nand which allows workers to pick their jobs on a daily basis. This\r\nsystem allows individual longshoremen a freedom which is unparalleled\r\namong other members of the American workforce. It has long been a\r\ndream of the West Coast maritime employers to do away with the hiring\r\nhall system that the ILWU won through militant strikes beginning in\r\n1934.<\/p>\r\n
This past year, our brothers and\r\nsisters of the ILWU Canada, the organized longshore workers in\r\nBritish Columbia ports, began contract negotiations with the British\r\nColumbia Maritime Employers Association, the Canadian subsidiary of\r\nthe Pacific Maritime Association. The employers tabled a set of\r\nunheard-of demands, including continuous operations, port-by-port or\r\ncompany-by-company agreements, and electronic or phone dispatching of\r\nworkers.<\/p>\r\n
The members of ILWU Canada considered\r\nthis set of employer contract demands to be a declaration of war, and\r\nvowed a fight to the death to preserve the historic gains of the ILWU\r\nwhich the employers had indicated their desire to eliminate.<\/p>\r\n
An April resolution of the ILWU\r\nInternational Executive Board states the policy and\r\nthe determination of the Union to support \"ILWU Canada's\r\nstruggle against the BCMEA's attempts to impose fundamental changes\r\non Canada's West Coast waterfront that would alter basic conditions\r\nof production and employment.... Canadian waterfront workers have\r\nstruggled for nearly a century for union rights, fair bargaining and\r\nsafe conditions and these will not be abolished by the employer\r\ngroup's shortsighted pursuit of profits at the expense of workers'\r\nliving standards.\"<\/p>\r\n
It seems that the officers of Local 19\r\nSeattle have decided to assist our mortal enemy, SSA, and the other\r\nPMA companies, in implementing their most perverse fantasies and\r\nrealizing their wildest hopes five months before Coastwise longshore\r\nbargaining is even set to begin. The passage of these new work rules\r\ngiving away our union coffee breaks—a violation of the Coast\r\nagreement on its face—by a tiny minority of Local 19's\r\nmembership, puts into question the level of basic union democracy\r\nthat still exists in Local 19, and brings the corruption of the\r\nSeattle longshore union's officers into sharp relief.<\/p>\r\n
Only the rank and file of the\r\nILWU—through militant job actions and a vigilant commitment to\r\nattend every union meeting, stop these abject sell-outs by this\r\nclique of petty dictators, and rescue union democracy in the ILWU—can\r\nturn the tide and keep the ILWU from finally being transformed into\r\nits opposite, a company union.<\/p>\n","contact":"ranknfile19@gmail.com","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Five months before organized West Coast longshore workers are set to begin bargaining for a new contract with the employers association, union officers in one ILWU local are already starting to give away some key historic gains of waterfront workers","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2007\/08\/204854.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":204888,"heading":"Elimination of Unit Breaks","article":"Here is the memorandum between ILWU Local 19 and SSA, in its entirety.","author":"Joe","parent_id":204854,"mime_type":"application\/pdf","created":"2007-08-17 00:50:13","modified":"2007-08-17 00:50:13","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/08\/continuous-operation19.pdf"}]}