Strikers as terrorist?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

A CounterPunch Exclusive, June 27, 2002

Strikers as Terrorists?
Ridge Calls Longshoremen's Chief
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.



Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org



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