ILWU draws power from its bloody birth
By Justin Pritchard
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — On the sidewalk outside the local longshoremen's hiring hall, a man paints the white outlines of two dock workers killed during the 1934 strike that forever changed how billions of dollars of goods enter and leave West Coast ports.
Inside the hall, any longshoremen will tell you how those killings helped form a militant union that turned brutal waterfront work into a blue-collar job with white-collar wages and perks.
Ever since that bloody strike, longshoremen have controlled job assignments at every port on the West Coast — leverage unrivaled among labor unions.
The memory of that strike also has proven to be a reliable trump card at the negotiating table, which is just where the International Longshore and Warehouse Union finds itself now.
The contract between dock workers and shippers expires at 2 p.m. Hawai'i time tomorrow. With the outcome governing all of the 10,500 longshoremen at America's 29 major Pacific ports, it wouldn't take long for labor unrest to cripple trade with Asia and send a shiver through world economies.
Local 142 of the ILWU, which represents Hawai'i longshoremen, negotiate separately, and have agreed to extend their contract.
The Pacific Maritime Association of shippers says the $260 billion worth of cargo that moved through ports from San Diego to Seattle last year supported 4 million American jobs.
With Pacific Rim trade expected to double in the next decade, the association says U.S. ports must become more efficient.
"In the post 9/11 era, there is no question that the need for technology and modernization is even more crucial," spokesman Jack Suite says. "Modern workplace practices and the introduction of basic technology are absolutely necessary for ensuring national security, relieving mounting congestion on the terminals and removing this bottleneck in the global transportation system."
Longshoremen fear that's simply employer doublespeak that cloaks an attempt to outsource union jobs and ultimately regain control over work assignments — a process the union now controls through its hiring halls.
"There's no way around the excellent wages and benefits and working conditions that the union has achieved," says Peter Olney, a former ILWU organizer and now co-director of a labor studies center at the University of California, Berkeley.
As a result, longshoremen have thrived, even as organized labor withers nationally.
Benefits worth fighting for
Not only has the union won them high salaries — $80,000 on average for full-time dock work, up to a $167,000 average for the most experienced foremen — shippers pay practically their entire healthcare costs.
They also like freedoms that the hiring hall affords — each morning longshoremen decide what assignment they want and who will be their boss.
And they know their work is vital.
"The job that we are blessed to have affects the whole economy," says Henry Pellom III, known as "Gloveman" for the stacks he sells to other union members. He plays $5-a-hand card games with "Ragman" (who sells clothing) and other friends at the hall each day before heading to the docks to work the giant cranes and move acres of containers.
"Our job dictates," Gloveman says, "that we have some type of leverage."
Negotiators on both sides were pessimistic this week about the talks over a new three-year contract, but wouldn't speculate what will happen after tomorrow's deadline.
In 1999, longshoremen kept working, and a contract was settled after two weeks.
But they struck in 1936-37, 1948 and 1971. And more so than ever, a strike would rapidly ripple through not only shippers' balance sheets, but also the economy at large, as slimmed-down businesses with low inventories find the flow of cheap Asian goods slows to a trickle.
Among the rank and file, talk of a strike or a lockout was common during rallies Thursday at ports along the West Coast, where the Teamsters union promised to join any strike.
"A culture of resistance has emerged in the union," says David Wellman, author of book on the ILWU's San Francisco local and a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "It's a kind of toughness. They've taken the best shot that anybody's given them."
Heritage worth protecting
Very public calls for solidarity are part of the legacy of union founder Harry Bridges, who refused to buckle despite repeated federal investigations and constant police surveillance.
He created a union culture that still embraces racial inclusion and spurns hierarchy — local leaders can serve no more than two one-year terms before returning to the rank-and-file.
Inside the hall near San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, photos of Bridges compete for wall space with murals of pre-union hardships. Their motto is ubiquitous: "An injury to one is an injury to all."
New longshoremen must take classes reviewing union history as well as details of the current contract.
And every July 5, San Francisco Bay Area ports sit idle as the union memorializes the two men shot by police in 1934 — which is why the man outside is touching up the sidewalk.
"You gotta know where you came from, so that it's not taken for granted, so that it's not thrown away," says Richard Mead, president of ILWU Local 10.
The hiring halls are the key.
Workers call in to hear how many ships need loading or unloading. They arrive at the hall around 6 a.m., and when their number is called, decide whether they like what's on offer. Even the worst job pays around $28 an hour — lucrative enough so that few jobs go unfilled. In these rare cases, the shippers can hire nonunion labor.
"When you come through this window, you can have any of those jobs," says Mead, gesturing to slips of paper inside the dispatch booth, where a woman calls workers by number. "Or you can look in here and say, 'I don't want to do any of that today,' and leave."
Mead pauses as he looks up at a countdown calendar that says "Be Ready for a Lockout or Strike."
"Change that," he says, and the dispatcher reaches to update the number of days left before the looming deadline.
Before 1934, there were no deadlines, because there was no contract.
Longshoremen who gathered on the docks were fortunate to get work, and bosses were often capricious or corrupt. Much like the case of the day laborers who now congregate on the streets of many cities in hope that someone will offer them work, wages for longshoremen weren't guaranteed.
Now, a spot in the union is so valuable, a father can will it to his son.
Tom Villeggiante, one of six sons who followed "Watermelon Charlie" Villeggiante into the union, speaks of the hall as hallowed ground.
"Longshoremen lost their lives for that hall," says Villeggiante, 47. "That's like the lifeline of the union. Everybody takes care of everybody at the hall."
