Strikers as Terrorists?
http://www.counterpunch.org/
June 27, 2002
by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
At
the rate things are going, it won't be long before labor organizers are being thrown
into military prisons, held without warrant as "enemy combatants".
Tom Ridge, director of the Office of homeland Security has been phoning Jim
Spinosa, head of the West Coast's Longshoremen's Union, saying that a strike
would be bad for the national interest. Next Monday sees the expiration of the
current three-year contract between the Longshoremen and the employers, grouped
in the Pacific Maritime Association. If the 10,000-strong longshoremen go on
strike, ports from Seattle to San Diego could shut down, meaning a big jolt to
the already floundering US economy.
A
call to Spinosa by the Secretary of Labor would not be surprising, given the
stakes, but a call from the man in charge of coordinating the battle against
terrorism on America's home turf confirms all the Left's deepest fears that, as
so often throughout the twentieth century, national security is being used to
justify strike-breaking, invocation of the Taft-Hartley Act and declarations of
national emergency to shut down labor activism and if necessary throw labor
organizers in jail.
Longshoremen don't need to be told this. They know it's what happened to
their most famous leader, Harry Bridges. In World War II the US government,
particularly through the US Navy, cut deals with the Mob (mainly involving a
hands-off posture on the drug trade), giving the Mobsters specific orders on
which labor leaders to rough up and murder. Between 1942 and 1946 there were 26
unsolved murders of labor organizers and dockworkers, dumped in the water by
the Mob, working in collusion with Navy Intelligence. (For more, reade our book
Whiteout, which contains a chapter on this nasty affair.)
Jack Heyman, business agent of the San Francisco Longshore Union (ILWU),
tells CounterPunch that Ridge called Spinosa, the ILWU international president,
about 7 to 10 days ago in the midst of negotiations. "He said that he
didn't think it would be a good idea if there was a disruption in trade and
went on to say that it is important to continue negotiating." Since then,
according to Heyman, Spinosa has been talking not only to Ridge but also to Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Ridge's astounding and sinister intervention comes in the midst of tense
negotiations between the Pacific Maritime Association representing shipowners
and stevedores operating on the West Coast and the ILWU. The prime issue is
technology, where the employers seek change in work rules. Today, Thursday,
Longshore workers are staging a rally in Oakland.
"The big thing," Heyman says, "is the hiring hall. The
PMA wants to computerize the hall. Longshore workers died in the 1934 strike for
the hiring hall. It dictates who controls distribution of jobs, who controls
the waterfront. We eliminated corruption and favoritism with establishment of
union hiring hall. They want to put computer cards. When you go to hiring hall
you schmooze, see what is going on. Employers don't want that."
The trans-Pacific trade has grown to become one of the largest in the
world. The West Coast now has four of the top six U.S. container ports. Wages
for full-time longshoremen range from $105,278 for general longshoremen to
$125,058 for marine clerks to $167,122 for foremen. Longshoremen have always
made it a rule in negotiations not to make any concession without an equivalent
concession from the employers. Heyman mentions the push by European unions for shorter
work weeks as one model for demands here.
The PMA is also demanding that the workers begin paying for part of
their health insurance coverage, a demand that would slice into rights won by
the Longshoremen in the 1960s. "It's not fair that all these foreign-owned
shipping lines want American workers to pay more for health coverage,"
said Ramon Ponce de Leon Jr, head of the ILWU's local for the Los Angeles-Long
Beach port.
This year's contract disputes are particularly fraught. The rapid gains
in trade volume are over for the moment, as both the U.S. and Asian economies
struggle to emerge from recession. Shipping revenues are down. Since Sept. 11,
security has replaced commerce as the transportation industry's main priority.
Residents of port communities beef about the long lines of trucks at container
terminals that cause gridlock on their roads and pollute the air. With the huge
new container ships now being built, such problems will get worse.
According to the Journal of Commerce, "Over the past year, PMA President
Joseph Miniace has publicly called for the introduction of contemporary
technology to increase the efficiency of cargo-handling activities at West
Coast ports. ILWU President James Spinosa responded that the union would never
accept the type of robotics he personally witnessed at the Port of
Rotterdam."
Ridge's call comes in the context of urgent PMA lobbying in Washington.
Again according to the Journal of Commerce, "Management forces, pointing
out that shipments through West Coast ports account for 70 per cent of the
nation's gross domestic product, have been trying to line up support in
Washington, D.C. PMA President Joseph Miniace has been a frequent visitor to
the nation's capital, meeting with members of Congress and administration
officials. Importers and exporters have also joined the fray. They note that
what happens on the West Coast will affect companies across the country.
They're trying to keep the pressure on the PMA to stand firm in the
bargaining."
There are other sinister signs that "homeland security" is being used as a club to bash labor. The right wing is working fiercely to make the prospective new umbrella Homeland Security Agency non-union, again citing the paramountcy of national security. Once again this takes us back to the darkest days of domestic repression at the dawn of the Cold War.