From: "Richard Van Schaick" Richard@ilwu.com
Workers at the terminal begin organizing after meeting with representatives of Local 63. The organizing drive is a complete success with all but one worker at that site signing a pledge card.
Southern California ILWU organizer Mike Diller enters the work site unannounced with a letter stating that the overwhelming majority of workers have requested representation and asks the manager there for immediate recognition of OCU Local 63 as the sole bargaining agent for those workers. The regular practice by companies is to refuse this request, and demand a NLRB election. The NLRB election process takes about 45 days, and allows the company to convince workers to reconsider their initial pledge to support the union. The decision to allow the union in would be determined by a simple "Yes" or "No" vote in secret ballot. But Solar Shipping never had a chance at this process because the terminal manager signed the letter given to him by Diller stating that the company immediately recognizes the ILWU as the bargaining agent of those workers. By so doing, Solar waives all rights to an NLRB election, and must begin contract negotiations at once. Diller is likely stunned at the ease at which this is accomplished. Normally employers meet unionization drives with whatever resistance they can muster… especially in the maritime industry, and especially when the ILWU is involved. This is because maritime workers are often able to double their salary by organizing their worksite into the ILWU. An article soon appears about Local 63's organizing success in the JOC.
Solar management, fearful of an organizing effort in the downtown office, give raises nearly matching the ILWU's wage scale to most workers hoping to reduce the union's attraction. The General Manager explains the raises by saying "Solar had a good year," calling even more suspicion upon the company. (The raises, by the way, are never requested by downtown workers). Further, management titles are passed out to many downtown workers in order to inhibit an ILWU organizing drive, since managers are prohibited from holding membership in the union. This is also an effort by the company to, in the event of successful ILWU penetration in the downtown office, limit the Union's 'head-count'. Most everyone, although happy with their new wages, doubt the sincerity of the company's behavior, since the raises are obviously tied to the successful organizing campaign at the terminal. Also, the fact that Solar was now sharing the wealth of it's most successful business year ever with workers struck more than just a few people as 'out of character'.
Having the wages, but not the job security of the ILWU, was the position downtown workers were in. What's more, the raises are suspected by many to be a delaying tactic of the company, to cause hesitation in contacting the union while management figures out what its next step will be. It was a well known fact that carriers fear the ILWU (just look at how many of them left California when Local 63 was on it's '1996 organizing rampage'), but this was especially true with Solar. In fact, the reason our office was in Los Angeles and not Long Beach (like almost every other carrier) was to stay far and away from the ILWU's offices and membership. Owing to this fear Solar had of the ILWU, some feared the company was likely to strike out and do something irrational. This lead to four workers to make an appointment with an officer Local 63 to discuss their situation. This first meeting occurs after a workday and lasts (an animated) five hours. It is a frank discussion about the need for the ILWU's involvement in the downtown office. At that meeting an organizing strategy is mapped out to counter the threat of an office layoff or closing. No firm decision is made yet to go forward or not, and no organizing occurs in this week, as the four watch management' s actions looking for signs of what the company is planning. Also, the organizers and Union need to gauge workers' reaction to ILWU membership.
The company begins closed-door meetings with attorneys (with their own as well as Mitsui's attorneys who, at the time, were running a bitter anti-union campaign for an upcoming NLRB election at that office). [Historic note folks: Mitsui was able to convince a majority of their workers to vote against the ILWU, and their office stayed union-free. Less then one year later, all of these workers, who were convinced to trust their company, had been fired.] It is never a good sign when your company is talking to lawyers all day.
Appearing late in the week, the company passes out an anti-ILWU pamphlet (produced for workers at Mitsui). The pamphlet, which goes to everyone, is four pages long. It is crammed with lies and misinformation. It is distributed unsigned by management to escape legal culpability, since it directly libels Jerry Rich personally. It falsely states that ILWU members are subject to constant fines for being 'undisciplined' and hints that the union will call for an endless series of strikes and has a violent criminal history.
By the end of this week, management is studying organization charts, apparently having decided their course of action. Most workers in downtown are tense, wondering what the company will do next.
Management begins acting very strange (even for them). The General Manager begins a detailed tour of the office several times a day, even asking some workers if they're "busy" or not.
In response to the ongoing developments, a decision is made by organizers to wait no longer. On the evening of January 23, Tuesday, pledge cards are collected from the Local 63 Union Hall for distribution within the office. The organizing moves at a frantic pace: 50% sign on the first day of organizing (Wednesday), and by the evening of Thursday January 25, 75% of the office has signed pledge cards. This is a surprising success, since literally no one in our office had any experience and very little knowledge of unions in general. Pledge card count and discussion of whom to approach next is made at a table at the 7th Street Market.
On Friday morning, downtown organizers ask a Local 63 officer for a letter to be delivered Monday morning petitioning for ILWU representation in the office. It was suspected that the company would turn down this request and demand an NLRB election (obviously). With 75% already signed, the last 25% of the office was to be approached at the end of the day (Friday) after work. This never happened, though…
Beginning around 4:45 p.m., management begins a mass layoff. In all, 17 people are told their work has been "transferred to NJ" in what is (undoubtedly) the first round of firings. It is a desperate move by Solar to escape the clutching grip of the ILWU. An urgent call was made to the Union Officers who were, fortunately for us, sitting across the table from Solar NJ management and their attorneys working out the final details of the terminal workers contract. The Union Officers and terminal workers stewards decide to make a stand for the downtown office. Local 63 demands Solar immediately (1) Rehire all terminated workers, and (2) begin collective bargaining for the downtown office. Solar, facing the united front of the terminal workers and pissed-off ILWU officers, begin backing away from their decision to lay off the downtown office. Fearing economic retribution by the ILWU against YML shipping along the West Coast, Solar relents and agrees to Local 63's demands. This is the second time in the same month that Solar accepts ILWU representation without an NLRB vote. Downtown workers are unaware of the concessions Solar is making.
After Solar had already lost this battle, and agreed to rehire the downtown office, the General Manager begins calling workers who had not been terminated at their home offering more money. In reality, it is a cleverly disguised effort to pump information about the Union's strength and status in the downtown office. Apparently Taipei wanted to know exactly what had happened and Solar was at a loss to explain the rapidly unfolding events, or who was responsible. All workers received a second call that night, this time from organizers, urging them to attend a meeting on the following day (Saturday) in Long Beach at the Local 63 Union Hall.
All downtown workers attend a meeting at the Hall of OCU Local 63. The officers break the good news with two words: "You're in." The meeting briefly covers the terms of the contract agreed to with the company.
Contract effective date, although it is not finalized for several weeks. The company is required to call all terminated employees back to work by this date.
Solar backtracks on several items they originally agreed to for the (not yet signed) contract. In response, Union officers urge a strike vote by downtown and terminal Solar workers. The vote to strike is unanimous. That evening, Solar workers set up a picket line outside Berth 127 commencing at 11p.m. Loading stops on the Ming Plenty as Local 13 longshoremen walk off the job in support of the striking Solar workers. Longshoremen, assigned to work the vessel, quickly mass in YML's Berth 127 parking lot behind the picket line. 48 minutes later, Solar agrees to all of the Union's unsettled terms and Solar workers agree to end the strike.
A story like this isn't really that out of the ordinary for the ILWU. It has always come to the aid of people in distress. In the 1930s, for example, the Union harassed Nazi shipping before the war, demanding that the swastika flag be taken down before the vessel was worked. Also in the 1930s, after Japan invaded China, the Union refused to load war materials on any vessel destined to Japan. In the 1980s, the ILWU harassed South African shipping to protest apartheid. In all of these cases and the hundreds like them, our Union has always done what is right, even at great risk to itself. Because in business as in life, people not profits have to come first. Solar believed (and not wrongly either) that if the Union was to be defeated at all, it had to be defeated EARLY. They knew that the very minute an officer of the ILWU walked through their doors, they'd lose their sweatshop forever. You see, while the ILWU's power is narrow, it is very deep, and it is not shy about using this power to batter down the guilty (whether they're Nazis in the 30s or your modern day run-of-the-mill ship owning tyrants). How much did Solar know about the organization effort before Black Friday? That question remains to be fully answered. Suffice it to say they definitely knew something, but not the whole situation by any means… I don't believe they would have taken the action they did if they knew just how far along the Union was in this office. It would be stupid to bait the ILWU into a fight the employer has nearly no chance of winning. Police goons or no police goons, laws or no laws, court or no courts, the ILWU can grind employer recalcitrance into dust in short order. That is to say, it does an employer no good to win in the courts if they lose at the ports. Just ask the (now ex-) owners of the Neptune Jade… they'll tell you what happens when an employer screws with even the friends of the Union, about getting shut out of American, Canadian and Japanese ports, then having to sell your vessel with the cargo still loaded on it in a harbor that isn't even a calling port.
Throughout those 4 weeks the General Manager failed to speak at all on the subject of the Union. Never once did he open a dialogue with his workers. 'Union' was the word that dare not say its name. This further illuminates, without justifying it, the company's fear of the ILWU, and helps explain its irrational behavior.
Could Solar have won an NLRB election at the downtown site? They obviously thought they couldn't. If an employer is fair with its workers, what fear should it have from any union? But Solar looked at itself and wasn't comfortable with what it saw: the substandard pay it offered; its attempt to cut lunch hour by one half-hour (remember that?); its massive cut of vacation days; its sexist pay policies; et. al. Solar looked at itself through the eyes of its the workers, and found itself failing… and failing badly. No wonder they were afraid of the Union. But rather than do the right thing and change the way the company operated, it tried radical surgery on itself. It tried to remove whole limbs from its own body. It tried amputation rather than healing and recovery because amputation is quick, easy and cheap. Healing and recovery take time, and what's worse, cost money. Money Solar had, but not time… too many years had gone by, a hundred missed opportunities (and a few missing raises as well). Easier by far to cut off the arm and sew on a new one in the coming weeks. Fortunately, that Frankenstein was killed in its cradle. That's the power of Union and Solidarity.
Let us carry forward the sixty-year tradition of the ILWU into the next millenium: Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Organize the unorganized.
