Brother Brian Wiles wrote (among other things):
“please send this protest email...”
“...As an ILWU member, I would like to remind you of our union’s action on Tuesday, when we shut down shipping on the West Coast from Bellingham to San Diego, in solidarity with anti-WTO demonstrators. Your actions are being closely watched by members of our union in the five major ports; please do the right thing in order to avoid a possible repetition of Tuesday’s action.”
I know the Brother well and love him. You can depend that his heart is steadfastly in the right place.
Since he also wrote: “Change it anyway you like, brothers and sisters...”, I am writing to ask you to write your personal observations and feelings as an ILWU member, but please eliminate the first passage quoted above and any related lines from anything you write (and post publicly) for the following reasons:
a. No rank and filer has authority to speak for “the five major ports.”
b. A rank and filer has no authority to instigate the action this inherent threat implies, even his own local, without going through the democratic process at that local.
Has that been done? (I certainly hope that is not the case, or at least that there is no such record.) Wait, DON’T TELL ME! (keep reading)
c. IF such a measure had been authorized through your local’s machinery, and you told anyone about it, you would be breaking your oath as an ILWU member... not to reveal what goes on at meeting – “EXCEPT BY PERMISSION” – remember? Anybody been given permission to say such things? (I highly doubt it!)
d. Because a threat is always either a bluff, the desparate act of a coward or the ignorant act of a fool. Note: There is a great difference between being or seeming threatening and the act of making a threat.
Please think about this. It comes from years of experience. Any time you make a threat, to an employer, shame on you on behalf of that employer’s workers (I learned that organizing); to a government official, shame on you on behalf of those who may be under that government’s control (I learned that in a county jail); or even to a punk on the street, shame on you on behalf of your reputation, and perhaps on behalf of you nose! (I learned that in Chicago)
Why? BECAUSE WHEN YOU MAKE A THREAT, YOU RELINQUISH ANY CONTROL OF THE SITUATION!
At the very least, you have reduced yourself to having to re-act instead of act!
At the very least, you have put your adversary in a position where he has a minimum of two options:
If He Calls Your Bluff: Can you deliver what you’ve threatened? Even if you surely can, what are the consequences? In the instant case, the consequences are tantamount to challenging our Employer and the City of Seattle to a money duel at ten paces when our money won’t stretch two paces.
If He Forces Your Hand by Ignoring You: Now you must either deliver (what you threatened to do “if”) or lose ALL face and ALL credibility!
e. Because (on a purely pragmatic note) Forewarned Is Forearmed.
IF you are going to hit somebody, you DON’T go up to him first and say; “Please prepare yourself the best that you can, kind sir, because with your kind permision and this more than ample notice, I’m going to try to hurt you.”
NO! You run up and SMACK him and hopefully knock him down! (DUH)
Optional, but proven-to-be-effective, advanced tactic gleaned from a mis-spent youth: After you knock him down, you perform your most animated version of the “Chicago Devil Dance” upon his head and neck until you are sure he can’t move!
f. How much control of the situation at hand, and how much of our ability to function as a union would you like to give away?
Again from years of experience – I am convinced that our Employer stalls settling legal cases in which both we and the Employer are losing money, because it depletes our limited resources and because, comparitively, the money is not that great an issue to him . Much better for him to have you pit our resources (David) directly against their resources (Goliath) AFTER you put our rocks in his hand! (and I mean rocks in more ways than one!)
Don’t take my word for this! Instead let us repair to an excerpt from that incorrigible mouthpiece-for-the-employer-masquerading-as-a-reporter, Bill Mongelluzzo.
Dockers Return to Work after WTO Protest - from the Journal of Commerce, December 1, 1999
Although the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines and terminal operators, had indicated earlier in the week that it would make use of the grievance machinery established by the contract and call in arbitrators to rule on the legality of the job actions, arbitrators were not called. Sources said ILWU officials told the PMA in advance that the union felt strongly about making a public statement about WTO policies, but dockworkers would return to their jobs and clear up the backlog of cargo as soon as the job actions ended if employers looked the other way. (emphasis mine)
Observations – What can we learn from this? For better or for worse, our team has been playing ball with their team. For only the worse, this has been acknowledged and publicized. I don’t know exactly what we stand to win from this game but, since we are playing, it does constitute a sort of bargaining, and because of that, we all know what we stand to lo$e!
And the moral to this story is: In a confrontion where threats are imminent, let the other guy make them! You be in control! Use your resources wisely. Don’t give them away! Only fight to win! or, once again The harder you beat your chest, the better you may feel – while you’re doing it. There is a strict threshhold. Beyond that you have only a severely bruised chest and, of course, the medical bills.
frats, ole
