By invoking the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act to reopen ports after a lockout by shipping companies, the Bush administration exposes itself to the charge that it has colluded with employers to destroy one of America's strongest unions, the ILWU.
THE Bush administration stands pitted against one of the strongest unions in the United States, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), following its action of obtaining a court ruling on October 8, to lift an almost 12-day lockout of more than 10,000 dock workers at 29 ports along the west coast of the country.
The lockout declared on September 27 by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), the organisation representing the shipping companies, followed months of negotiations to renew a labour contract that expired on July 1. The core of the dispute did not relate to wages or even jobs but the way new technology will be introduced at the docks on the western seaboard. The ILWU alleged that the PMA's lockout, and the subsequent action by the government, were aimed at destroying the union.
The lockout resulted in a snarl-up along the entire west coast from Seattle in the northwest to San Diego in the southwest. More than 200 ships with cargo were stranded at ports. The result was a logjam not just at the ports but also in retail outlets and factories across the U.S. The losses on account of the lockout amounted to about $20 billion. In 2001, the 29 ports had handled cargo worth more than $300 billion, representing about 10 per cent of the Gross National Product (GNP) of the U.S.
On October 8, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the docks reopened, under the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act. The Bush government cited a "national emergency" to justify its decision to use the provisions of the Act, one of organised labour's most hated legal provisions. The Taft-Hartley Act provides for a "cooling-off" period of 80 days, during which workers lose their right to strike. Although the Taft-Hartley provisions have been invoked 33 times since 1947, when the Act came into force, this is the first time that it has been used to deal with a lockout declared by employers. Dock workers have faced the provisions on 11 occasions in the past, the last instance being in1971.
The American Federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO) secretary-treasurer, Richard Trumke, called the invocation of Taft-Hartley "a tragedy with historic ramifications".
In a statement issued after the court order, ILWU president James Spinosa said that the ILWU "expects the PMA to use all the anti-union provisions of the Taft-Hartley injunction". The timing of the government intervention has led to charges that the Bush administration acted in a partisan manner. Spinosa pointed out that the 80-day injunction enables the PMA to get past the peak shipping season that coincides with the spurt in business during Christmas-New Year. He alleged that once past this point, the PMA would be under no compulsion to negotiate a fresh contract with the ILWU.
Spinosa expressed the fear that employers would start alleging slowdowns by workers. "Taft-Hartley," he said, "gives them 80 days of free shots at the union and we expect the employers will be dragging us daily to the courts trying to bankrupt the union and throw our leaders in jail." Meanwhile, the PMA has said that it expects productivity to be at "normal" levels during the 80-day period. Spinosa has said that this would be a "physical impossibility" because of the backlog caused by the lockout and also because of the traditionally busy season at the ports till the New Year. The ILWU said that productivity would also depend on the PMA's willingness to recruit additional workers to clear the cargo. It pointed out that the "congestion and the gridlock on the docks also creates an extremely hazardous workplace."
THE dispute between the ILWU and the PMA is basically over the introduction of electronic cargo tracking technology at the docks. The ILWU's stated position on technology, worked out during the tenure of its former long-time president, the legendary Harry Bridges, is that while technological change cannot be resisted, workers reserve the right to a share of the productivity gains that accrue to employers from the introduction of new technologies. In fact, this stand is what enabled the introduction of containers in docks at these ports in the 1960s and 1970s. The ILWU accepted the entry of cranes, forklifts and other cargo-handling machinery, which replaced the traditional hook and cargo nets on the docks, as part of an inevitable process. Although there were substantial job losses on the docks, the ILWU retained the right of its members, after due training, to work on the new jobs. There were also substantial financial payoffs for the workers. During the current impasse, the ILWU has repeatedly said that it is willing to cooperate with managements in the introduction of new equipment such as bar code readers and scanners. In return it has demanded that union members perform these jobs, as is the case with other dock operations.
The PMA's unwillingness to accept unionisation of the new jobs thus marks a reversal of the traditional trade-off that it has made with the dock workers in the matter of technology induction. One of the legacies of the Bridges era one that has thus far withstood the challenge of globalisation has been the ability of the workers to ensure their participation in determining the manner in which work is organised on the docks. The right to determine control over the work process on the docks was no mean achievement for dock workers. It was achieved through militant struggles since the 1930s.
On the basis of the stated positions of the two sides it would appear that the gulf is narrow. After all, the new technology issue relates only to some 300 to 400 jobs out of a total of about 10,500. In financial terms too, it apparently does not make sense for the PMA to inflict the kind of damage it has by its 12-day lockout a loss of about $20 billion. The difference between unionised and non-unionised jobs for these 300 to 400 workers means, after all, only about $20 million a year for the shippers. So, why has the PMA climbed such a high horse? The answer probably lies in the way the balance of power has inexorably shifted away from workers during the last two decades. The attack on the ILWU is viewed by its sympathisers as an assault on one of the last bastions of the American labour movement. The PMA wants to outsource the jobs associated with the new electronic technologies from far away even outside the U.S. at far lower wages and outside the purview of collective bargaining. The ILWU fears that a loss on this count will undermine its very right to exist as a union. This probably explains the high stakes that both sides have in the battle.
Speaking on Working Assets Radio, which focusses on labour issues, Dick Meister, former Labour editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, pointed out that the ILWU has never opposed technology improvements on the waterfront. "What they are saying", he said, "is that if new jobs are created to replace the clerical workforce, they should be unionised under the ILWU." He also said: "Although the relationship between the PMA, which represents the shippers, and the ILWU has been rocky, they have got along fairly well over the years."
THANKS to the relatively high degree of unionisation among the dock workers, in large measure due to the struggles initiated under Harry Bridges, dock workers in the U.S. enjoy a standard of living that is the envy of other working folk in the U.S. Although media projections have suggested that the annual salary of a U.S. west coast dock worker is in excess of $1,00,000, labour analysts have pointed out that the average full-time wage would be about $80,000. However, the occupation is extremely hazardous the dockworker's job is the second-most dangerous, after that of the miner, in the U.S. The accident rate on the docks is among the highest among all occupations in the U.S 7,000 workers are injured on the docks every year. Moreover, the average dock worker has to be on call round the clock throughout the year, often in harsh working conditions. The ILWU has also accused the PMA of being negligent to its safety concerns.
Meister regards the ILWU as "the most powerful, most influential, most democratic and most progressive union in the US." He said: "Workers in other industries should be concerned because if the ILWU can be hurt and denied a decent settlement, then no union or group of working people is safe in the U.S. If these workers can be pushed around, anybody else can be."
In a letter addressed to its rank and file after the talks with the PMA collapsed, the ILWU leadership pointed out that the negotiations were sabotaged by the shippers' recourse to "bait and switch" bargaining based on "bad faith". It pointed out that throughout the period since the end of the last settlement in July, the workers were willing to work. On October 6, the ILWU accepted the suggestion by federal mediators to extend the lapsed contract by seven days. But this was turned down by the PMA, which wanted a 90-day extension. The ILWU later explained that the acceptance of PMA terms would be tantamount to accepting the provisions of the Taft-Hartley provisions.
In the wake of the court injunction, there is fear among the dock workers that they could be hauled in court for contempt on some pretext or the other by the PMA, at the cost to life and limb. The ILWU has sought a larger contingent of health and safety inspectors at the docks to ensure that workers can work in safe conditions. The PMA has already alleged that workers are slowing down work at the ports. However, union leaders blame the slow progress on the docks on the cargo logjam and on worker shortages.
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney has asked Secretary of Labour Elaine Chao and the Governors of California, Oregon and Washington, to send federal inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to the overloaded docks to monitor working conditions. In his letter to Chao, Sweeney stated that inspectors could determine whether "deviations from what the PMA contend is a `normal and reasonable rate of speed' arise from legitimate concerns over safety." "By dispatching government inspectors to the docks, you can help take this issue out of play so that the parties can concentrate on the hard work of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement," Sweeney wrote.
The ILWU fears that the federal court order, which requires the union to work at a "normal and reasonable" pace, may be interpreted adversely by the PMA in court in order to raise contempt charges against the union.
The ILWU's apprehensions turned out to be true when the PMA made a formal complaint to the Justice Department that productivity had fallen to 34 per cent below normal in Oakland, California; by 29 per cent in Portland, Oregon; and, 27 per cent in Seattle. The Justice Department, in turn, admitted that the PMA had raised "serious allegations". Steve Stallone, the chief spokesperson of the ILWU has insisted that cargo movement has slowed down because of the "extraordinary" congestion at the ports. He said: "Even if we wanted to mess up productivity on the docks, we couldn't do half as good a job as the Pacific Maritime Association has done with the logistical disaster they created through the lockout."
Although the PMA filed its complaint alleging "concerted, systematic work slowdown" by the ILWU to the Justice Department on October 18, it was not until a week later that it actually submitted proof substantiating its allegations. In its response, the ILWU dismissed the charges of a work slowdown as "completely baseless" and as an attempt by the PMA to destroy the union.
On the eve of a round of Congressional elections the Bush Administration finds itself locked in a battle with the biggest union in America. Some observers have already begun to refer to it as "the defining union conflict of the Bush era".
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