Striking union members are terrorists

[Guest Frank Zappa Mask]

June 27, 2002

A CounterPunch Exclusive

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.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

"Once

again this takes us back to the darkest days of

domestic repression at the dawn of the Cold War."

 

The rest I can't comment on because I have yet to see the story elsewhere, but I'd like to know what domestic repression in relation to labor was going on between 1945-1950.

[Guest godthedog]

let's hope that they don't set a legal precedent that makes taking an action that's 'bad for national interest' equal to terrorism. the floodgates would open.

[Guest DrTom]

"Ridge's astounding and sinister intervention..."

 

This whole article seems presumptuous and speculative, and this strikes me as the part that best illustrates that. How is Ridge's "intervention" -- which amounted to a single phone call -- "sinister?" I think he has a point that this could be bad for homeland security: trained, experienced longshoremen would be able to spot something out of place on a boat or on the docks. It's very possible that terrorists could use boats and ports to attack us, since they're not policed nearly as well as airports. Having experienced longshoremen working those ports could be a deterrant, or at least increase the chances of an early warning.

 

The authors seem to enjoy comparing Ridge's phone call to the alleged conspiracy between the Navy and the Mob sixty years ago. I guess when the left can't gripe legitimately about what the current administration is doing, they have to go fishing for offal like this.

[Guest Some Guy]

June 27, 2002

   A CounterPunch Exclusive

   Strikers as Terrorists?

   Ridge Calls Longshoremen's Chief

 

   by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair

 

        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.)

It's kind of funny that the "Left's biggest fear" is a result of things that happened during FDR's administration. How is this the fault of Tom Ridge? Oh that's right it isn't but all conservatives are evil, labor haters, right?

[Guest Cancer Marney]

I despise the unions.

[Guest Some Guy]

As do I, look at what they did to Baseball. Workers should be provided with adequate working evironments and pay but when it gets to the point that the business itself is in jeopardy it's time for the Unions to step back. They rarely if ever do. The attitude of the Unions is "what's best for me is all that matters regardless of whether or not it hurts the business I work for" which is a poor platform, considering you could run your self out of a job through your own greed.

[Guest Frank Zappa Mask]

Let me tell you guys a little story about a thing that turned me off to the Left a bit. In my sophomore year of college, I participated in a group called SOLE (Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality). Hey, sounds great, sign me up. I even got arrested protesting Kohl's use of sweatshop labor, and a total of zero people cared. In any case, during a trip down to the Toledo, Ohio area so we students could show some support to a local union, during one of the car rides, I happened to overhear one of the union leaders remarking that if people at this certain plant did not join the union, they would be fired..............Now, aren't unions supposed to insure a worker's well-being? Aren't unions supposed to insure that a worker cannot be fired for refusing to do something irrational? Aren't unions supposed to help make a worker's life better? Nope, in this union, if you don't tow the "new" company line, you are fired, sent out into the streets without a whit of compassion or remorse. Unions may be a good idea in theory like a lot of things, but once people get their hands on it, it falls apart into greedy battles for power and wealth that defeat the idea in the first place and leave too many people in a position they should have never been in the first place.....

[Guest Some Guy]

I'll give you an example of Unions mistreating non-union coworkers from MLB. Brian Daubach was a carreer minor leaguer who got the chance to play MLB during the strike in 94. He was a "scab" player. Daubach got called up to the Red Sox in 99 and was immediately ostracized by his own teammates for crossing the line. Now these multi-millionaires didn't give a shit that this guy has a family to feed and has been toiling for about 8 years looking for a shot, all they cared about is their own money. That's why I don't buy the "We're looking out for the young guys" bullshit that the players try to shove down our throats because they're by and large a bunch of selfish, arrogant shits who care for nobody but themselves.

 

I think the premise of a Union is solid however it has been taken way to far.