When Local 10 negotiators met with PMA last Thursday, a new atmosphere pervaded the room. For the first time the employers on the other side of the table seemed to hear what Local 10 has been saying since the start of negotiations three months ago, “we want parity in working conditions with the coast”.
1) Employers have agreed in principle that longshoremen will be ordered and dispatched in gangs including on container ships, maintaining sufficient manning and the order of dispatch. The lashing crew will not be part of the container crane gangs, but will swing for the walking boss.
2) Steadymen will work under Section 14, as they do in Los Angeles. This means crane operators and top pick drivers will not relieve under the hook as signalmen/hatchtenders. A crane board will be set up for the dayside from which crane operators and signalmen/hatchtenders will be ordered by seniority and paid at the crane operator’s rate of pay. Until we build an adequate pool of crane operators for an anticipated booming port, three crane operators will be ordered for each crane with the less experienced operator going up for at least one hour in the first part of the shift and one hour at the finish.
From February 8-9, President Lawrence Thibeaux, Chief Dispatcher Ralph Rooker and a PMA representative will tour Longshore locals in Portland, Seattle and Tacoma to study how their dispatch of crane gangs works in order to apply it here.
The next negotiations will take place Friday February 11 at the International. Travel time, scheduled days off and the BA’s right to access to the docks will be on the table for discussion and resolution.
Mr. Kenneth Riley Jr. ,
President ILA Local 1422
727 King Street
Charleston, South Carolina 29403
Dear Brother Riley and ILA Local 1422 members,
We’ve read about your valiant efforts to defend your union and your jobs from incursions by the non-union Winyah Stevedoring company. Your stand, in the face of police provocation, was inspiring to us longshoremen on the West Coast who will be facing the same problem.
Last month, in Seattle ILWU locals and other AFL-CIO unions vigorously protested against the World Trade Organization, whose policies encourage privatization and unionbusting. . . . . exactly what you’re confronted with in Charleston today – a Danish shipowner and a private American stevedoring company conspiring to destroy ILA Local 1422. If these unionbusting outfits are allowed to proliferate they will destroy the decent working conditions and benefits that organized labor has built, through sweat and blood, over the years. And they will use so-called “Right to Work” laws to do it.
The lesson of the bold Liverpool dockers’ struggle is clear: longshore unions on both coasts and internationally must be vigilant and supportive of each other in the struggle against these anti-labor threats. We will demand the immediate release of the 8 jailed longshoremen and an end to police brutality with the use of concussion grenades, batons, police cars and helicopters – -all in an effort to stop longshoremen from defending their jobs. Please let us know if we can support your struggle further. As we say in the ILWU “An injury to one is an injury to all. ”
In solidarity,
Lawrence Thibeaux
President ILWU Local 10
The Open World Conference of Workers in Defense of Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights will take place in San Francisco from Feb. 11-14. Almost 200 trade union leaders and rank-and-file activists from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe and as many from the U. S. will gather to discuss how we can work together to combat the assault of the corporate “free trade” agenda.
The San Francisco Labor Council is one of the sponsors and the ILWU is an endorser. Local 10 and Local 34 are sending delegates. Kevin Gibbons, Clarence Thomas and Jack Heyman will represent Local 10. ILWU members are coming up from Los Angeles, too. We urge others to go and to volunteer some of their time. The conference registration fee ($100) will be waived for all who volunteer for the security team. Contact the OWC at 415-641-8616 for more information.
The case of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is presently before federal District Judge Youhn. The judge will decide whether to hear all of the evidence in the case or only what “hanging judge” Sabo allowed in his kangaroo court. Mumia’s life hangs in the balance. While ILWU’s West Coast shutdown last April helped bring attention to the frameup of this innocent militant black journalist and to the racist application of the death penalty, the struggle for his life is not over.
To raise money for his legal defense the Rank and File ILWU Committee to Defend Mumia Abu-Jamal is sponsoring a party at the Bayview Boat Club at the foot of Pier 54 in San Francisco. Tickets cost $15 and must be purchased in advance from either Wendy Hadden, Walter Cook, Larry Wright, Erick “Stretch” Wright or Jack Heyman.
Pam Africa, head of the Philadelphia-based International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, will be at the hiring hall Friday AM February 4 to thank the ILWU for its support for this class war prisoner and to talk about his case.
(If ILWU locals post their Bulletins it will help keep members on the Coast better informed and better able to support each others’ efforts. Jack Heyman)
