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NEWS & LETTERS,
August-September 2002
Docker solidarity
Oakland, Cal.--International Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) Local 10 held a unity rally on June 27, where they were joined by
thousands of other workers demanding an end to management’s effort to
outsource ILWU work and break the power of the union in the present contract
negotiations. The employers in the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA)
are feeling like they can go after the ILWU in this post-September 11 climate.
For years they have campaigned hard for more federal government intervention in
the maritime industry to undermine the ILWU. Now government security czar Tom
Ridge has called the ILWU directly, telling them to settle their contract
negotiations without a strike. Hanging over the ILWU is the threat that Bush
will issue a Taft-Hartley injunction, to force workers to stay on the job. WORLD TRADE NEEDS DOCKERS During a brief, symbolic work stoppage trucks lined up
for miles awaiting loads to feed the new economy’s lean, just-in-time
inventory. What capitalists and their men in the White House fear most is not a
security breach on the docks but the power of dockworkers to shut down the world
economy and their willingness to use that power to support other workers. Jack Heyman of the ILWU said the agenda of the PMA is to
“restrict trade union power on the docks by banning the right to strike.” He
added, “Under the rubric of ‘national security,’ the impending Maritime
Security Act, and passage of the USA Patriot Act not only basic liberties will
be affected but background checks will be required to screen port workers, the
bulk of whom are minority or immigrant workers.” ILWU has been in the forefront of international workers’
solidarity, supporting the mostly African-American Charleston, S.C. dockworkers
and the Liverpool dockworkers in England. An International Dockworkers Council,
affiliated with a five-million-member International Transport Workers
Federation, came out of these solidarity struggles. At the December AFL-CIO convention, the Teamsters, ILA
(the east coast longshore union) and ILWU formed a transportation union pact.
All pledged at the unity rally to support the dockworkers in any showdown with
management. The solidarity campaign continues to attract more
support as at a July 24 rally outside of PMA headquarters in San Francisco’s
financial district. Since the ILWU contract expired on July 1, they have been
renewing the old contract on a day-to-day basis. PROMOTING LAYOFFS The ILWU says they are willing to have their clerical
positions computerized, eliminating many of the 2,300 jobs, as long as the
remaining work is still done by ILWU. The ILWU gained their relatively good pay
and benefits because they accepted dramatic cuts in their ranks from new
technologies like containerization. A deeper question for dockworkers and their friends
expressing solidarity with them is how to deal with the continued use of
technology as a weapon that erodes the ranks of militant unions, leaving other
workers in the two-tier economy behind. We have to confront this slow drip of
technological innovation used as a weapon against us and transform its very
existence as capital. --Marxist-Humanist supporters |
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