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CounterPunch
November
14, 2002
Dockworkers
in the Dark
What's Inside the ILWU Technology Agreement?
by LEE SUSTAR
Why won't leaders of the West Coast dockworkers'
union tell rank-and-file members what's in the tentative technology
agreement with management?
After enduring a 10-day lockout by employers,
and intervention by the White House under the anti-union Taft-Hartley
Act, the 10,500 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) were kept in the dark on the details of the technology
deal announced November 1--even though it's central to the dispute.
The union said details won't be released
to members until a full agreement is reached--perhaps not until
the union's Coast Caucus meets December 9. This unwillingness
to inform--let alone involve--the rank and file is the latest
example of the conservative strategy pursued by ILWU President
James Spinosa.
In what was apparently an effort to avoid
government intervention, Spinosa never took a rank-and-file
strike authorization vote, even after the old contract expired
July 1. George W. Bush intervened anyway--and although Spinosa
denounced the move, he has done little to build labor solidarity
against this union busting. Instead, the ILWU focused solely
on campaigning for the Democrats in the November 5 elections.
The tentative agreement on technology
calls for the elimination of 400 clerks' jobs through implementation
of new technology, according to press reports. In exchange,
the union got guaranteed jobs for those workers as well as ILWU
jurisdiction over some currently nonunion planning jobs on
the docks and in rail yards. The crucial issue of whether ILWU
clerks would retain jurisdiction over new jobs created by technology
would be decided through arbitration.
The employers' Pacific Maritime Association
(PMA) broke off negotiations for a week to caucus over the deal.
According to the management publication The Journal of Commerce,
PMA hard-liners were opposed to the deal and now want to alter
the arbitration system in their favor.
If they don't get their way, they could
still scuttle the agreement. In that case, Taft-Hartley would
allow the presiding federal judge to force a vote on management's
"last, best and final" offer through the National
Labor Relations Board after 60 days of the cooling-off period.
If workers don't cave, the employers could appeal to the incoming
Republican Congress to step in.
The PMA already accused the ILWU of a
work slowdown soon after dockworkers returned to their jobs
October 9--and wrote a letter to the U.S. Justice Department
calling for intervention. The feds obliged, sending a letter
to the ILWU threatening to haul its officials before the presiding
judge, who has the authority to fine the union under Taft-Hartley.
Meanwhile, management has been calling for Congress to place
the ILWU under the Railway Labor Act, which makes legal strikes
almost impossible.
The stakes for the ILWU--and the labor
movement--could scarcely be higher. Every dockworker in the
ILWU should demand that union leaders tell them exactly what
the technology agreement entails--now. If the agreement fails
to protect jobs and union power, members need to be prepared
to vote it down and develop a fighting strategy.
Why technology is the central issue
EMPLOYERS WOULD have the world believe
that their dispute with the ILWU is over the union's unwillingness
to use modern computer equipment. The real issue is who gets
control of the jobs that will be created in the fast-growing
field of logistics--the organization of supply chains for factories
and retailers.
According to USBX Investment Research,
the logistics industry will grow from $56 billion in 2000 to
$108 billion in 2004 as corporations outsource warehousing and
use "just-in-time" delivery to reduce costs.
The employers' lockout of the ILWU highlighted
the critical role of logistics in the world economy, as a number
of factories around the U.S. were forced to curtail production
because of a lack of parts from Asia. That's why the big "intermodal"
freight carriers--those with sea, land and air freight operations--are
backing the PMA's effort to break the ILWU.
In turn, they are backed by big importers
like Wal-Mart and Toyota in the West Coast Waterfront Coalition,
who want to use technology to track shipments from factories
in the Far East to U.S. plants. To meet that demand, virtually
every giant shipping line has a logistics operation--including
Maersk Sealand, Neptune Orient and P&O Nedlloyd.
Now, United Parcel Service has set up
UPS Logistics, a nonunion operation that hauled in $1.4 billion
in revenue last year. Nonunion carrier Federal Express has set
up a similar outfit as well.
"The battle lines of the future
have been drawn," The Journal of Commerce observed. "Competition
will no longer be company vs. company. Instead, it will be supply
chain vs. supply chain." Earlier this year, the magazine
declared, "In this environment, the inefficient, manual
methods of operating marine terminals have never stood out more
as an obstacle to the efficient movement of goods that everyone
involved in international logistics is trying to achieve."
But management's complaint that the union
clerks currently must re-key cargo data into their terminals
is a red herring. ILWU members could just as easily operate
a system based on new technology.
Yet the PMA sees the ILWU as an obstacle
because unionized clerks control the shipping information that's
key to logistics. And each shipping line wants to implement
its own technology to gain a competitive edge in logistics--and
use cheaper, nonunion labor to do it.
By apparently surrendering 400 clerks'
jobs now, ILWU President James Spinosa is only whetting the
appetite of employers who want to eliminate many more jobs later.
Lee Sustar
writes for the Socialist
Worker. He can be reached at: lsustar@ameritech.net
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