Friday September 5, 1997
Journal Of Commerce
By Bruce Barnard & Bill Mongelluzzo
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union will shut down all West Coast ports for eight hours Monday night as a show of solidarity with 329 dockworkers in Liverpool. England, who were sacked two years ago.
"We're doing this in support of the Liverpool dockers. It's part of an international action," said Steve Stallone, an ILWU spokesperson. The ports will be shut down from 6 pm.. Monday until 2 a.m. Tuesday.
The so-called stop-work meeting by the ILWU will be part of a worldwide movement among dockworkers to call attention to how the privatization of ports and marine terminals is causing a deterioration of working conditions," Mr. Stallone said.
"We're telling everybody that privatization... of the waterfront is resulting in low wages, no safety rules and no work rules. This is happening everywhere, and Liverpool is the symbol," he said.
Mersey Docks and Harbour Co. On Sept. 27, 1995, fired 329 dockworkers in Liverpool who refused to cross what employers said was an illegal picketline. The pickets were set up by employees of an independent stevedore that had collapsed.
Mersey Docks since then has steadfastly refused to rehire the dockworkers, although it did offer each longshoreman up to $40,000 in compensation. The dockers have been equally adamant in refusing the money and demanding instead that they get their jobs back.
The plight of the Liverpool dockers has become a rallying cry for dockworkers around the world. Last January, the London-based International Transport Workers Federation, which represents about 500 transport worker unions in more than 100 countries, called for a global sympathy strike.
Dockworkers in a number of countries joined the strike which varied in length at ports from an hour to an entire day. In the United States, the ILWU closed down the West Coast ports, but the International Longshoremen's Association did not participate.
The ILA, which represents longshoremen at East and Gulf coast ports, could not be reached Thursday about plans for Monday's work stoppage.
The strikes planned for Monday are expected to get their strongest support on the U.S. West Coast, and at ports in Australia and Scandinavia. Dockworkers in England are not expected to join in, because the Transport and General Workers Union said it would be an illegal walkout.
Dockworkers in Liverpool this week rejected the latest compromise offer to create a dockers cooperative. They said it would employ 25 to 28, far less that the number who were sacked two years ago. Mr. Stallone said West Coast longshoremen will take the opportunity during the stop-work meeting Monday to inform the public about the evils of privatization worldwide and in their own backyard.
The Journal of Commerce, in an otherwise excellent report, repeats a familiar misrepresentation of the origins of the Liverpool dockworkers dispute when it claims "The pickets were set up by employees of an independent stevedore that had collapsed."
This may be Mersey Docks account of events, but it is untrue. Torside, the stevedoring company set up with the active involvement of Mersey Docks, threatened to go into liquidation in the runup to the current dispute. But when 5 Torside employees were sacked after supervisors broke the agreed overtime arrangements, Torside was still trading. And when 80 Torside employees were sacked for supporting their colleagues, Torside was still trading. It went into liquidation only after Mersey Docks and Harbour Company sacked its entire dock labour force (around 400 workers - not 329 or 327 as frequently claimed) - which meant that around 500 dockers were now sacked.
