fwd: Federal Judge Issues Taft-Hartley Injunction to End Lockout

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxx>]

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-------------------

Federal Judge Issues Taft-Hartley Injunction to End Lockout

By ALAN BENJAMIN

SAN FRANCISCO -- At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8th, Federal District Judge
William Aslup issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) from a courtroom in
San Francisco's Federal Building, effectively putting an end to the 11-day
employer lockout of 10,500 ILWU longshore workers in 29 West Coast Ports.
According to the TRO, the Pacific Martime Association (PMA) must lift its
lockout immediately, with longshore workers returning to work as quickly as
possible. A permanent 80-day "cooling-off" injunction will be issued,
according to Judge Aslup, following a hearing scheduled for next week.

[See article below from the Oct. 9 New York Times.]

In his announcement of the TRO, Judge Aslup insisted that under the terms of
this injunction there would be "no slowdowns" by the ILWU workers. He said
he fully concurred with President Bush that the "health and safety of the
nation" was imperiled by the current contract dispute and that work on the
docks must resume, as Bush insisted in his press statement, at "a normal
pace."

Following Judge Aslup's decision, ILWU President Jim Spinosa announced that
the union would go back to work. He said there would be no slowdowns but
went on to insist that the union was determined to "work safely" under the
safety code established in the union's contract.

On just one hour's notice, the San Francisco Labor Council organized a
protest action at the Federal Building that brought out 80 unionists and
activists, with the largest contingent from SEIU Local 87. The activists,
echoing the stance taken by the national and international labor movement,
denounced the imposition of Taft-Hartley, calling it a Slave Labor Act aimed
at imposing a return-to-work order under the bosses' terms. They called on
the judge to refuse to hand down the injunction demanded by Bush and
Ashcroft.

Unionists at the protest demonstration interviewed by this reporter warned
that the PMA, with this court order, could now impose its much-sought-after
speedup without having to abide by the safety code in the contract. "The
situation is now very grave," said IBU-ILWU member Robert Irminger. "If the
longshore workers insist on working safely under the provisions of the
union's safety code, they risk being fined or even fired by the employers if
a judge finds the workers to be jeopardizing the 'health and safety of the
nation' and the terms of the Taft-Hartley injunction."

Irminger said the entire labor movement should be alerted to this real and
present danger. "The PMA has brought the government in -- which was their
intention all along. This is the same government that said they would
militarize the docks if the ILWU were to strike for a better contract. We
can expect the government and the courts to do the employers' bidding."

These warnings are well founded.

Earlier in day, the Labor Department had contacted both the union and the
PMA with a proposal that they agree to return to work for 30 days under the
provisions of the old contract, which expired earlier this summer. The union
said it would agree to return to work under the 30-day contract extension,
even though it had opposed such a proposal in the past -- but the PMA
refused to lift the lockout under the terms proposed by the Labor
Department.

The PMA's motives for rejecting this 30-day extension are most revealing. At
a 2 p.m. press conference, PMA President Joseph Miniace said the PMA could
not accept the 30-day extension because there was no guarantee under this
agreement that (1) the "slowdowns" allegedly conducted by the ILWU prior to
the lockout would be halted, and, (2) the union would agree to resume work
at a "normal pace" following the 30 days. According to Miniace, the PMA
required a Taft-Hartley injunction to prevent the "slowdowns" and to ensure
that the 10-to-12 week backlog of ships could be properly attended to.

The charge of "slowdowns" by the ILWU, as the union's spokespersons have
explained repeatedly, is completely unfounded. Prior to the employer
lockout, the longshore workers were working at their regular fast pace. They
did, however, refuse the speedups demanded by the PMA -- speedups that had
led this year alone to five longshore deaths in Southern California.

The gauntlet has now been thrown down. The entire national and international
labor movement must speak out loudly against the imposition of this
Taft-Hartley injunction. And it must be ready to take action in the event
the employers, through a compliant judge, move to fine or discipline workers
for refusing the PMA's unacceptable speedup dictates and/or any other
measures imposed by the PMA to break the union.

The time is now for labor to stand squarely behind the ILWU.

Please send statements of solidarity to the ILWU as soon as possible. An
international labor solidarity rally is in the works for Thursday, October
10 at the hall of ILWU Local 10. It would be important to have solidarity
greetings from around the world at this rally. Please send your statements
to Steve Stallone, Communications Department, ILWU, at Fax: 415-775-1302, or
email <stevestallone@xxxxxxxx>. Please send copies of your statements to the
OWC Continuations Committee, c/o San Francisco Labor Council at Fax:
415-440-9297, or email <ilcinfo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>.

-----

(Alan Benjamin is a co-coordinator of the Continuations Committee of the
Open World Conference. He is a delegate from OPEIU Local 3 to the San
Francisco Labor Council.)

**********


Bush Invokes Taft-Hartley Act to Open West Coast Ports

By DAVID E. SANGER with STEVEN GREENHOUSE

(reprinted from the October 9 issue of The New York Times)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - President Bush intervened in the 11-day shutdown of 29
West Coast ports today, successfully seeking a court order today to halt the
employers' lockout of 10,500 longshoremen, because the operation of the
ports is "vital to our economy and to our military."

Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court in San Francisco issued a
temporary injunction tonight that ordered the ports reopened immediately.

In seeking to suspend the shutdown for 80 days, Mr. Bush became the first
president to successfully invoke the Taft-Hartley Act emergency provisions
since President Richard M. Nixon sought to stop a longshoremen's strike in
1971.

Judge Alsup said he would hold a hearing in a week on whether to grant a
full 80-day injunction. If he grants it, the dispute would be pushed past
the Nov. 5 election, past the Christmas buying season and, perhaps, past the
start of military action against Iraq.

Mr. Bush said he was worried about the movement of military supplies. The
Pentagon often uses commercial shipping lines to send supplies and equipment
overseas, and those lines would undoubtedly fill that role from the busy
West Coast ports if fighting erupted in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle
East.

The president sought the court order after Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao
was unable to negotiate a 30-day contract extension to reopen the ports. The
International Longshore and Warehouse Union agreed to a 30-day extension.
But the employers' group acknowledged that it had rejected an extension,
saying it feared that the longshoremen would engage in a work slowdown.

Mr. Bush's aides said he was reluctant to act, but feared that a
continuation of the shutdown would undermine a sputtering economic recovery.
Some economists estimate that it has already cost the economy more than $10
billion.

"This dispute between management and labor cannot be allowed to further harm
the economy and force thousands of working Americans from their jobs," Mr.
Bush said in a hastily called announcement for reporters in the Rose Garden.

On Sept. 29, the Pacific Maritime Association, a group of port operators and
shipping lines, shut the ports and locked out the longshoremen, accusing the
workers of engaging in a slowdown. Union officials said the workers were
merely observing safety precautions, because five longshoremen have died on
the job this year. The union said the lockout was a management ploy intended
to have the president intervene. Unions traditionally oppose back-to-work
orders as government interference in contract disputes.

The major issue in this dispute is management's proposal to introduce new
technologies to speed cargo handling.

The union has said it will not accept the new technology unless all new jobs
resulting from it are in union jurisdiction.

For the White House, the decision today was a difficult political
calculation. With union leaders opposed to a cooling-off period, some of Mr.
Bush's political advisers feared that the move might mobilize union members
against Republican candidates less than a month from the midterm elections.

Several unions that Mr. Bush has courted say such injunctions undercut
labor's power in contract disputes.

"We're extremely disappointed," said Bret Caldwell, a spokesman for the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union that Mr. Bush has wooed
most vigorously. "The whole strategy of locking out the workers and urging
the president to invoke Taft-Hartley was clearly an employer strategy to get
around negotiating a contract with these workers. It's a bad precedent. It
gives management the upper hand.'

Some White House officials argued that labor itself was divided on the
issue.

"With every passing day, as the harm to economy increased, the president
leaned more and more in this direction," a senior administration official
said. "It buys some time. It gets us past Christmas."

Moreover, there is a chance that Mr. Bush may reap some benefit. Many
business groups lobbied for him to seek an injunction, and they have sounded
the alarm about the shutdown's potential to damage the economy.

Tracy Mullin, president of the National Retail Federation, said: "The
President has shown political courage and leadership. He has put national
security and the economy first."

Mr. Bush made his announcement one day after appointing a board of inquiry
led by former Labor Secretary Bill Brock to report to him about the damage
caused by the shutdown of ports that handle $300 billion in cargo each year.
The board gave Mr. Bush a report this morning that said, "We have no
confidence that the parties will resolve the West Coast ports dispute within
a reasonable time."

A New York Times/CBS News poll published on Monday reported that voters were
increasingly disenchanted with Mr. Bush's handling of the economy. Although
the White House has argued that there is little that a president can do to
control the business cycle, discussion in the administration grew over the
weekend that inaction would only contribute to concerns that Mr. Bush was
too remote from economic worries.

In his brief Rose Garden statement, Mr. Bush said: "The crisis in our
Western ports is hurting the economy. It is hurting the security of our
country, and the federal government must act. Americans are working hard
every day to bring our economy back from recession. This nation simply
cannot afford to have hundreds of billions of dollars a year in potential
manufacturing and agricultural trade sitting idle."

Many business leaders praised the president for seeking a cooling-off
period, noting that the amount of money separating the two sides, $20
million by some estimates, was infinitesimal compared to the damage the
dispute done to the economy.

A spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, Darren McKinney,
said: "While the N.A.M. would have preferred the parties' coming together
amicably and resolving the issue before governmental intervention became
necessary, they failed in that and all the while the economy was being
severely damaged. So we support the president's move."

Administration, management and union officials said the Labor Department
solicitor, Eugene Scalia, contacted the heads of the union and the Pacific
Maritime Association, the port operators' group, this morning to propose a
30-day contract extension. Several union leaders praised that approach,
because it showed that the administration was seeking to heed union concerns
and avoid invoking the Taft-Hartley Act.

An official in the talks said that the union agreed to a 30-day extension,
but that the companies rejected it. Joseph Miniace, president of the
operators' group, based in San Francisco, said in a telephone interview he
could not accept such an extension when the longshoremen seemed quite likely
to work at a slow pace when they were back on the job.

"A 30-day extension, while we believe it would be a good short-term
solution, clearly does not answer the questions of what happens in the long
term," Mr. Miniace said. "We have been negotiating for five months without a
solution."

But when the maritime association ruled out the extension, administration
officials decided that they had no option but to seek an injunction.

Officials of the union accused the employers' group and the Bush
administration of conspiring to order an injunction to weaken the workers'
hand, an assertion that the administration and employers denied.

The A.F.L.-C.I.O. also denounced the president's move.

"We're absolutely furious," said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the
A.F.L.-C.I.O. "The P.M.A. locked the workers out, contrived a phony crisis
and then gets rescued by the administration. They're getting their way and
have the weight of the government behind them."

He said it was especially infuriating that the companies had rejected the
extension proposed by the administration and then still had the
administration do what it wanted, seeking an 80-day cooling off period.

The Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, allows presidents to seek injunctions
against strikes and lockouts that "imperil the national health or safety."

The act calls for a 60-day cooling-off period while mediators continue
working with the feuding parties. Then the National Labor Relations Board
has 15 days to poll employees to see whether they will accept management's
final proposal and an an additional five days to tally the votes. If the
workers reject the proposal, they can strike.



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