[Dryerase] Madison Insurgent - Nov/Dec articles - story #4

[the madison insurgent]

The ILWU, Taft-Hartley, and workplace control
by Tony Schultz

	Recently, the Badger Herald, a UW-Madison student
newspaper, ran a story about the West Coast struggle
between the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association
(PMA). There is currently a labor dispute because of
unsuccessful contract negotiations. The coverage was
clearly taken from corporate sources, and was,
expectedly, extremely biased and inaccurate. Besides
being filled with quotes from manufacturers groups and
the Bush Administration, there was no analysis of how
the Administration or the PMA was using the conflict
to further their agenda. Unfortunately, this issue is
much more complex than it is being portrayed in
mainstream media, and is extremely important to the
future of the labor movement.
	The ILWU is one of the strongest and best-organized
unions in the country. They have a long history of
militant unionism and have demonstrated their power in
progressive ways – refusing to unload goods from
apartheid South Africa, shutting down the docks for a
day in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal, participating
in the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle,
and standing in solidarity with dockworkers struggling
in Liverpool, England. 
Harry Stamper, an ILWU member, sums it up: "Our entire
history is one of change and modernization, of social
and ethnic equality, of solidarity so tight it will
hold water." 
	The ILWU is one of the best organized groups in the
United States because of their role in the process of
production. They load and unload cargo from sea ports
on the West coast – making them bottleneck in the
production line. If they don’t work, production halts.
Their work is also geographically immobile – unlike
many industries, it cannot be relocated to other
less-organized, lower-wage areas. Without this weapon
of mobility, the workers’ employer, the PMA, has been
forced to deal with them in ways that most employers
aren’t. 
	The PMA is currently going to great lengths to weaken
the ILWU because of this power. And this fight is
central to the labor movement as a whole, because the
strengths of the ILWU are essential to any successful
labor union. The ILWU draws its power from its
militancy, its members’ skills, and its control over
the workplace. The PMA’s goal in contact negotiations
is to undermine the skills aspect of the workers’
strength, in an effort to completely undermine the
union. 
	Skill is a combination of experience, formal mental
or physical training, informal training, physical
abilities, and judgment. Mike Parker of Labor Notes
says, "Skilled work is a thorn in the employer’s side,
not just because skilled workers are more difficult to
replace in the event of a strike, but because skilled
workers are more difficult to control in the
workplace. The fact that management would have
difficulty replacing you or even telling you what to
do gives the skilled worker a sense of power,
individually and collectively." The PMA is trying to
outsource skilled work to non-union employers – jobs
that are contractually ILWU work. The current struggle
on the docks focuses on about 600 "marine clerk" jobs,
about five percent of the ILWU’s membership. 
	Historically, the job of determining the placement of
cargo in outgoing ships, checking the organization of
incoming cargo, sequencing unloading and placing for
loading on trucks and trains was done by union
members. But over the past 40 years, more of this work
has been done using computers. The employers have used
this technology to move some of the skilled planning
and coordination work outside the ILWU. Now employers
are trying to accelerate this process under the guise
of technological change. The union is willing to
accept the technology, but insists that the functions
of dock, vessel, rail planning, and all other new work
created by implementation of new technologies remain
in the ILWU. This work is what the PMA is hoping to
outsource. These skilled jobs are key to worker
control. 
	The situation on the West Coast has been portrayed as
overpaid dockworkers fighting modernization and
threatening "national security." This is the corporate
media’s gross misrepresentation of a struggle with
which they do not want people to identify, a struggle
between owners and workers in this capitalist system.
The Herald called the situation on the West Coast a
"strike." This is incorrect. The dockworkers were
locked out – kept from work by their employer. To call
it a "strike" puts responsibility for the halt in
production on the workers. The employers used this
tactic because they knew the Bush administration would
use the Taft-Hartley Act to force the workers back to
work, under conditions preferable to the PMA – which
they have done. The Taft-Hartley Act was an anti-labor
act passed in 1947. When Congress passed it over
Truman’s veto, he called it a "slave labor act." 
	Well in advance of current contractnegotiations,
shiping    companies and retailers such as Target,
Mattel, Home Depot, and The Gap – which depend on
imports from the West Coast – formed the West Coast
Waterfront Coalition. The Coalition wanted the Bush
Administration to use a clause in Taft-Hartley that
allows the president to force workers back to work for
a "cooling off period" of 80 days when a labor dispute
is threatening "national security." This injunction of
the Act was timed so that the dockworkers would have
to work without the ability to strike during the
holiday season – one of their strongest leverage
points. Bush’s use of the act had nothing to do with
national security, but rather, it was about getting
Payless Shoes on the racks in time for Christmas. The
ILWU recently called on the Department of Justice to
conduct a full investigation into the apparent
collusion between the Bush Administration and shipping
companies and associations during the contract
dispute. In particular, the ILWU has asked the
Department of Justice to release the names of
individuals who attended secret meetings with the
Administration regarding the dispute. This is still
pending.
	What’s happening on the West coast is an example of
government sponsored  union-busting. The Bush
Administration’s collusion with the PMA has allowed
the PMA to undermine the bargaining strength that the
ILWU possesses. This allows the PMA to further their
effort to destroy the ILWU by giving them better
leverage at the bargaining table to outsource skilled
positions – which is where the ILWU draws so much of
its strength.
	This is a case of the government and corporations
trying to teach a lesson to workers with "too much
control" over their workplace. Like Regan, Bush is
working to further weaken the labor movement, which is
considered a liability to free-market corporate
profiteering. 
contact the author at aeschultz at students.wisc.edu 

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