West Coast dockworkers communicate out in opposition to White Home-backed tentative settlement
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Container ship NYK Themis in the Port of Los Angeles. [Photo by Downtowngal / CC BY-SA 4.0]
Workers are furious at the last-minute announcement this month of a tentative agreement between the International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) for over 22,000 West Coast dockers. The deal was announced after union bureaucracy forced dockers to remain on the job for nearly a year with an expired contract.
The announcement that a tentative deal had been reached followed months of slowdowns in West Coast ports initiated by ordinary workers. Worker industrial action increased earlier in the month after workers found out the PMA originally proposed a meager $1.62 wage increase.
While workers in America took industrial action, over 7,000 longshoremen in Canada voted in favor of the strike by a majority of 99 percent. Fearing a joint struggle with Canadian dockers who are also ILWU members, Wall Street called on the Biden administration to step in and push through a deal.
The White House dispatched Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su after the strike authorization vote. A tentative settlement was reportedly reached between the PMA and the ILWU within three days of Su’s arrival in San Francisco. In statements announcing the agreement, both the ILWU and PMA noted Su’s leadership role in enforcing the agreement.
Su was deputy labor secretary last year when the self-proclaimed “most pro-union” president in history dictatorially imposed a collective bargaining agreement on railroad workers. In a repeat of this attack on workers’ democratic rights, the Biden administration is also trying to force a deal on dockers that falls far short of what they are demanding.
Since the agreement was announced, both the PMA and ILWU have remained silent, giving members few details while demanding that workers “focus” and get back to work.
In a video released last Friday, ILWU President Willie Adams claimed that the tentative agreement will be reviewed next month by a faction of 29 bureaucrats. These talks are kept secret from the base. After this faction reaches an agreement, the TA is taken to each location for some members to review. However, even among the dockers, it is unclear who is actually allowed to view and vote on the contract in the individual bars.
“I am so outraged by the alleged tentative agreement,” a docker from Tacoma, Washington, wrote to the WSWS. “The corporations see all the huge profits and give us a pay cut basically equal to the cost of living!” What a joke the Biden administration was because they were supposed to be helping us. You have betrayed us.”
Another Tacoma worker wrote, “I think this agreement is a joke and I will be voting NO!!! This is an insult to all of us who worked so hard while our brothers and sisters were dying of this pandemic just to line the pockets of these companies under the pretense of helping the American people and the US economy. This is a slap in the face to all union members who have sacrificed so much.”
Referring to a one-time “hero bonus” included in the deal, the docker said, “The one-time $70 million “hero bonus” comes from the federal government, not the shipping companies. Inflation is over 10 percent and wage increases are only 5 percent. We are literally moving backwards. We’ll be broke and we’ll rely on these companies even more than we did before the contract. This is not good business. That’s not what we deserve. If our total cost to our employer is less than 2 percent of their total cost of ownership, then there is a problem.”
“Most members are not happy with the pension offer, so next month’s meeting will see it largely rejected,” added another West Coast docker. “Every place has different rules for the ratification process. In Los Angeles, I don’t even know if casual workers are allowed to be there or not.”
Daniel, a part-time docker from Northern California, told the WSWS that depending on the location, many workers are unable to attend the union meetings that will discuss July election decisions.
“They do that in every negotiation,” Daniel explained. “The body doesn’t really know all the details. If they have a caucus, they’ll tear the contract apart. If you’re not in the caucus, you can’t see what’s in the contract. Only A-men in some places [the highest seniority workers] Join the conversation. In our hall, the B-men can talk. In some halls the casuals [the lowest tier, with no contractual rights] can’t even come to the meeting.”
“The A-men [most senior workers] are dissatisfied because they increased the pension,” he added. “If you have 20 years, multiply that by $215 a year, that’s about $4,000 a month. They say it should be $300 to $350 per month per year.”
“She [management] “I don’t want to hire new employees because they don’t want to pay a pension or health insurance,” he continued, “but they made $300 billion last year.” It’s the same with UPS.
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“Even though they say we have a vet, I don’t think we have a vet,” he said. “I think that’s just something they said to get the media to cave in. Many shippers say they will not bring the cargo back until we have a signed agreement.”
“The problem is that the government shouldn’t even be involved. This woman [Su], she is terrible. The pension didn’t increase, the 401(k) amount didn’t even increase. Casuals didn’t get promoted, so what did she do? Absolutely nothing.
“If they sign this agreement, by 2028 we will be in such a deep crisis that we will never be able to pick ourselves up again,” he concluded. “We should be making $60 an hour a year, and every year we should get a $5 an hour raise, so $90 at the end of the contract.” Plumbers at the airport make $100 an hour. There are only about 22,000 dockers. A raise wouldn’t cost them much.”
Workers around the world want to fight for what they earn, be it Canadian longshoremen or American UPS workers, both of whom voted overwhelmingly to go on strike last month. There is an ingrained hatred not only for the corporations that have reaped huge profits off the blood and sweat of workers, but also for the union apparatus that has aided them in their attacks on workers.
West Coast dockers need to learn from the experiences of the Rail Workers Rank and File Committee, set up to oppose a conspiracy between the union bureaucracy, company and government to enforce last year’s collective bargaining agreement. They must organize independent action committees to break the information blackout, organize democratic discussions outside the reach of pro-business homing pigeons in the union bureaucracy, and plan joint action.
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