[Dryerase] Alarm!--It's the Stupid Economy

[The Alarm!Newswire]

“It’s the stupid economy”
US Labor and the Economy in the wake of September 11

By Fhar Miess
The Alarm! Newspaper Collective

We Americans like to think that everything changed on September 11, 
2001.  Obviously, things have changed, but when it comes to the US 
economy, the assumption that everything has changed can be a 
particularly dangerous one.  The fact of the matter is that the economy 
began its precipitous decline months before September 11.  When 
financial and commodity markets were closed for several days following 
the attacks on the World Trade Center towers, an economy on the brink 
of disaster was given a brief reprieve.

It would be all too easy to blame the country’s poor economic 
performance on the malice of foreign terrorists rather than over-valued 
stocks, inflated derivatives markets and “creative” accounting 
practices by domestic agents.  The latter reasons are, however, closer 
to reality, and, if anything, the attacks on the World Trade Center 
towers provided a much-needed distraction and buffer from this reality.

Within a week of the attacks, hawkish voices began appearing on the 
editorial pages of such publications as the Wall Street Journal, 
calling for a swift retaliation against the perpetrators of this direct 
attack on American military and economic might.  The Bush 
Administration was more than obliging to these interests and the US 
military was deployed in Afghanistan within the month.

When the markets reopened on the Monday following the attacks, prices 
and trading were relatively steady.  Economists were quick to note the 
urge for a return to “normalcy” by the consumer public.  Shoppers went 
to the malls in droves.  They flocked to the video stores to distract 
themselves with Hollywood schlock.  They packed the bookstores in 
search of answers in the printed word.  Sales of cell phones surged in 
the face of mounting anxieties about staying in touch with loved ones.  
Meanwhile the stock values of security staffing and equipment 
manufacturers skyrocketed in resonance with the saber-rattling 
emanating from the White House.

Soon afterward, the Bush Administration engineered and rushed through a 
$15 billion bailout of the crisis-stricken airline industry.  That 
industry responded to the vote of confidence from the government by 
laying off workers by the thousands.  This pattern of bolstering big 
economic players while ignoring the interests and needs of working 
people continued unabated in the Administration.  In the midst of 
“economic stimulus” packages (which even by conservative economic 
standards have been characterized as something less than stimulating) 
and moves to privatize Social Security, employers laid off some 800,000 
workers across almost all industries while housing and health care 
costs continued their upward climb.  In addition, it has taken longer 
than usual for unemployed workers to find new employment.  Still, Bush 
has maintained that the “fundamentals of the economy” remain strong 
(although, in a moment of understated candor, he managed recently to 
admit that times are “kind of tough” for American workers).

But the Bush Administration has not simply ignored the working class;  
it has actively fought to thwart it at every turn.  Citing the need for 
executive “flexibility” in the war against terrorism, Bush declared in 
early January that all collective bargaining agreements of workers 
previously represented by the American Federation of Government 
Employees in five Department of Justice divisions would be henceforth 
null and void.  More recently, the Administration has refused to budge 
in its insistence that workers transfered to the new Department of 
Homeland Security abandon union representation.  This insistence was 
the major sticking point that prevented Senate Democrats from approving 
  legislation formalizing the new department before the summer recess.

Workers in the transportation sector have been hit particularly hard, 
especially in air transportation.  Tens of thousands of security 
personnel and staff have been laid off since September 11 and the 
situation grows worse as time progresses.  The Bush Administration has 
been less than supportive.  In December, 15,000 Machinists at United 
Airlines threatened a strike if their demands for better pay were not 
met—demands they had put off for four years, waiting for United to get 
its financial ducks in a row.  A “Presidential Emergency Board,” 
appointed by G. W., banned the workers from striking on December 20, 
severely restricting what leverage they had.

On June 4 of this year, Bush abruptly signed an executive order paving 
the way for the privatization of the nation’s Air Traffic Control 
system, contrary to the interests of the controllers themselves, not to 
mention logic and common sense.  The air traffic controllers had proven 
themselves when they safely landed several hundred aircraft within 
minutes of the order to do so on September 11, and over 5,000 aircraft 
over the next couple of hours.  Britain, Australia and Canada, the only 
other nations to have privatized their own air traffic control systems, 
have had to bail out those private companies to keep them solvent and 
functioning, calling into question their ability to maintain safety in 
the skies.  Poor working conditions in those operations have been met 
with labor strikes.  All of this comes at a time when the 
Administration is moving away from privatization and toward the 
federalization of many other security-sensitive aspects of air travel 
to ensure that well-trained and well-compensated federal workers get 
the job done right (all concerns about the repressiveness of a “job 
well done” in this area put aside for the moment).

Another mammoth struggle in transport is coming to a head between 
Boeing and the International Association of Machinists (IAM).  The 
Machinists were set to go on strike starting Labor Day, but they heeded 
the call of federal mediators to return to the negotiating table.  
Boeing management was considerably less obliging, showing up to the 
meeting only to refuse further negotiation.

Business pages are appearing spelling doom for the Machinists.  Their 
leverage is significantly weakened by Boeing’s financial position.  
Orders for new commercial aircraft have been slow due to the financial 
failings of the airline industry since September 11, and the company is 
awaiting payment on orders already delivered.  While management insists 
that a strike is not good for them either, they have a clear advantage 
at the moment, despite the not insignificant strike fund of the 
Machinists, which could keep them out with strike pay for months.  
Union officials, however, appear eager for federal mediation, as 
evidenced by the fact that they risked alienating their rank and file 
by interrupting the strike vote as ballots were being cast in order to 
take the federal mediators up on their offer.

Still, Boeing does have orders to fulfill, including a recent order for 
sixteen military helicopters from the government of Kuwait, valued at 
around $2 billion, and this could work in the union’s favor.  Boeing 
has taken a stronger role in the production of military aircraft since 
its absorption of McDonnell Douglas in August of 1997.

These labor problems in the air travel industry are by no means limited 
to the United States.  Staff at Australian airline Qantas have gone on 
strike twice in the month of August.  The International Transport 
Workers’ Federation (ITF) has noted that workers in sea and air 
transportation around the world are among the hardest hit by security 
clampdowns in the wake of September 11.  Security personnel in civil 
aviation remain the worst paid in the industry while workers at sea are 
increasingly denied shore leave due to security concerns.

Transport workers on terra firma are not doing so well, either.  
Consolidated Freightways, a trucking company based out of Vancouver, 
Washington, filed for Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) protection on Tuesday, 
and Monday (Labor Day) announced that it would be laying off over 
15,000 unionized workers, effective immediately.  Carlos Ramos, a 
spokesman for Teamsters Local 776 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is 
quoted as saying, “that’s like telling your wife you’re getting 
divorced on Valentine’s Day.”

The liquidation of Consolidated Freightways comes after revelations 
following federal audits that the company funneled assets into a 
non-union subsidiary, Conway.  In addition, the company was one of 
sixteen large firms that failed to meet the Securities and Exchange 
Commission deadline of August 14 for financial certification.  The SEC 
required the certification of the bookkeeping practices of 691 such 
businesses following the collapse of Enron, WorldCom and others due to 
“aggressive” accounting practices that inflated their paper value.  
Outraged members of International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 206 
staged a protest and picket outside the company’s headquarters, across 
the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday.

But the pinnacle of this generalized labor strife is the brewing 
conflict between the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which 
represents shipping lines, and the International Longshore and 
Warehouse Union (ILWU).  The ILWU is traditionally one of the strongest 
and most militant of mainstream unions in the United States, 
representing primarily workers at ports along the West Coast of the US. 
  According to the PMA, those ports handled $260 billion worth of goods 
last year.  The PMA has made virtually no concessions while the ILWU 
has already made compromises far beyond what they have been willing to 
accept in the past.

Until Labor Day weekend, the parties had extended their existing 
contract since its expiration on July 1.  On Sunday, September 1, talks 
broke down completely as the PMA reneged on previous agreements 
regarding the protection of union jobs as technology on the docks is 
introduced.  This prompted the union not to renew the contract, paving 
the way to possible work slowdowns, which the union often uses to 
leverage its bargaining position.  For its part, the PMA has pledged to 
lock out the union if it engages in work slowdowns.

According to an ILWU press release, the PMA’s next move, after changing 
significant terms of the negotiations, was to call the Bush 
Administration.  Over a month ago, the ILWU made it public that 
Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Secretary of Defense Donald 
Rumsfeld had both pressured ILWU International President James Spinosa 
not to strike the West Coast ports in the interests of national 
security.  According to the union, the Bush Administration has also 
suggested that it may invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to mandate an 
eighty-day “cooling-off” period, ordering longshore workers back to the 
job.  This mandate is among four possible courses of action unionists 
claim the Administration has indicated it may take.  The other three 
include running the ports with Navy personnel, placing the docks under 
the restrictive Railroad Labor Act and breaking up the coastwise 
contract into separate negotiating units for each port.

The Administration is taking clear steps to make good on those threats. 
  According to Spinosa, “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,” he said, “why is Bush using 
the military against American workers involved in a legitimate labor 
dispute?”

Word of this federal meddling has outraged members of the ILWU and 
unionists around globe.  The union has also managed to garner the 
support of port authorities and legislators at all levels of 
government.  Members and leadership of the Teamsters (IBT), the 
International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA, which represents dock 
workers on the East Coast) as well as the five million-member 
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) pledged solidarity 
with the ILWU under the union’s motto:  “an injury to one is an injury 
to all.”  The Docker’s Section of the ITF recently passed a 
strongly-worded resolution that suggested that unionized longshore 
workers worldwide (an unfortunately dwindling breed) may refuse to 
unload cargo loaded by non-union scab labor on the West Coast, 
returning the favor that the ILWU has done for them on many occasions.

The West Coast Waterfront Coalition (WCWC), which represents a number 
of large importers and exporters (see sidebar), has urged the PMA to 
take a strong stance against the union and has lobbied the government 
to intervene in the event of labor actions.  The WCWC has cited 
possible ILWU job actions as threats to national security.  According 
to Friends of Labor, a group supporting harbor workers in Los Angeles, 
Robin Lanier, Executive Director of the WCWC, sent out emails Tuesday 
to its membership, spreading rumors (subsequently debunked and 
recanted) of job actions already taking place on the docks, apparently 
in an attempt to spur that membership into calling on the Bush 
Administration to intervene.  With the threat of government 
intervention, the PMA has little incentive to budge from its position 
in negotiations, many of which revolve around security issues brought 
to the fore since September 11.

Members of the ILWU, however, have accused the shipping lines of 
“wrapping themselves in the flag” to get their demands met at the 
bargaining table.  They point out that the ILWU was immediately 
forthcoming with suggestions to improve security the day after the 
World Trade Center towers were struck, and the union was met by the PMA 
with silence.  For many years, the ILWU and maritime transport workers 
generally have complained about the “Flag of Convenience” system that 
allows ship owners to register their vessels in any country, making it 
difficult to determine the true origins of ships, personnel and even 
cargo.  The lack of sufficient documentation also makes it difficult to 
determine who may have handled cargo between its origin and its 
destination.  The ILWU notes this with concern as a safety issue, 
particularly since shippers such as Maersk—which owns the Los Angeles 
dock facilities, the largest in the US—ships high volumes of goods from 
countries such as Libya and Iraq, countries that the US government 
labels “state sponsors of international terrorism.”

The ILWU has not taken the intransigence of the PMA sitting down.  
Rallies of thousands have been held in Oakland and Los Angeles, while 
smaller rallies took place in other ports along the West Coast, with 
several solidarity rallies on the East Coast.  Nor has the ILWU, along 
with much of the labor movement, limited its activism to “bread and 
butter” issues or to the shop floor.  ILWU members were out in force on 
August 22 when several thousand people took to the streets to protest 
the Bush Administration in Portland.  Besides criticizing Bush’s poor 
record of supporting labor, unionists protested the USA PATRIOT Act, 
which they see as a threat against union organizing, particularly among 
immigrant communities.  This act’s vague and broad language could 
easily be interpreted to define even labor organizing as “domestic 
terrorism”.

The protesters were met by the Portland Police Department with tear 
gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray.  On Labor Day, ILWU Local 5, 
representing Powell’s Bookstore workers, filed two suits with the 
Independent Police Review Board against the Portland Police Bureau and 
officers “due to their mishandling of the August 22nd, 2002 
demonstration and subsequent use of excessive force.”

In other recent developments, the Washington State Labor Council voted 
overwhelmingly in late August to support a resolution condemning 
President Bush’s “war on terrorism,” his administration’s attacks on 
civil liberties and the broad cuts to social services enacted in 
deference to expanded defense budgets and bailouts and subsidies for 
industry at the expense of workers.

It is becoming more and more clear in the ranks of organized labor, as 
it should be becoming clear to all of us, that the attacks of September 
11, horrific as they were, provided an excellent opportunity for the 
Bush Administration to delay an inevitable economic disaster by 
syphoning vast sums of money away from public services and into private 
industry, particularly the defense industry, all while using the 
pretext of a “war on terrorism” to thwart the resistance that organized 
labor and progressive activists would surely mount.  Unlike in most 
previous wars, labor is being offered no concillation prizes for its 
sacrifices.  Instead, conditions grow worse for most of us every day, 
despite the rhetoric of economic recovery.

Many of us are baffled by the insane logic that drives the present 
Administration, but there is something of a rationale behind it.  “It’s 
the stupid economy.”  We are engaged in an economic system that makes 
no sense for anyone but a very small elite.  And we must resist the 
explanation that the recent turn of events is simply a “correction” to 
an economy that remains fundamentally sound.  Any economy that requires 
a permanent war, an oppressed populace and inexhaustible resources to 
maintain its health is not worth investing in.  There are options, and 
we must learn to build and use them.

Sidebar:  CONSUMER ALERT:

While the ILWU has not officially called for a boycott, the union’s 
supporters might consider where they put their consumer dollars based 
on the following list of importers, exporters and retailers backing the 
PMA.

West Coast Waterfront Coalition Membership (also see 
http://www.friendsoflabor.com/thelist.htm)
• 3M
• Agilent Technologies
• Agriculture Ocean Transportation Coalition
• Best Buy Co., Inc.
• Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp.
• Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad
• C.H. Powell Company
• California Cartage Company
• Chiquita Brands International
• Columbia Sportswear Company
• ContainerFreight EIT, LLC
• Del Monte Foods
• Don Breazeale and Associates, Inc.
• DPI
• DSL Integrated Logistics, Inc.
• Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery
• Evergreen America Corporation
•	Expeditors International of Washington, Inc.
• Family Dollar Stores, Inc.
• Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America
• Gap Inc.
• Great Western Steamship Co.
• Hewlett Packard
• Intermodal West, Inc.
• International Mass Retail Association
• JCP Logistics L.P.
• Kellogg Company
• Kurt Orban Partners LLC
• Limited Logistics Services, Inc.
• MAERSK Pacific
• Marine Exchange of San Francisco Bay Region
• Mattel
• Mega Toys
• National Retail Federation
• Otis McAllister, Inc.
• Pacer Stack Train
• Pacific Maritime Association
•	Pacific Merchant Shippers Association
• Panasonic Logistics Company of America
• Payless Shoesource, Inc.
• Rail Delivery Services, Inc.
• Target Stores
• The Home Depot
• Toy Shipping Association
•	Toyota
• TransSolve, LLC
• U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel
• WAL-MART Stores, Inc.
• Yamaha Corporation of America

    All content Copyleft © 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where 
noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in 
whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or 
by government agencies.

-----
The Alarm! Newspaper
a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace

http://www.the-alarm.com/
info at the-alarm.com
P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061
(831) 429-NEWS - office
(831) 420-1498 - fax