UAW Backs Dockworkers' Fight for Safety, Job Security
Are West Coast dockworkers slowing down on the job?
That's the allegation made by port owners, who said a slowdown by the International Longshore Workers and Warehouse Union (ILWU) was the reason they locked out dockworkers at 29 ports in Oregon, Washington, and California on Sept. 29.
President Bush won a Taft-Hartley injunction to end the lockout on Oct. 8. But owners are still complaining that longshore workers aren't working fast enough to clear the backlog on the docks.
There are some people, however, who might not agree that speed is the only thing that counts when moving tons of freight with heavy equipment.
The family of Rudy Acosta, for example, might say that taking things slowly and observing all the safety rules is a good idea. Acosta, an ILWU member, was killed Sept. 3 when he was run over by a cargo-moving device at the Port of Long Beach.
Seven people have died in West Coast port accidents this year, including Acosta and four other ILWU members: Richie Lopez, killed by a forklift; Richard Peters, crushed against a ship by a moving crane; Mario Gonzalez, hit by a hydraulic-activated door, and John Prohoroff, killed by a spreader bar falling from a crane.
California safety officials can't explain the rash of fatal accidents. There were no deaths on the West Coast docks in 2000, and only one in 2001.
Safety is all the more important at present, when longshore workers are working without a contract, and without the protection of a grievance procedure in case of a dispute with management about work rules.
ILWU members offered to extend their contract if port owners would take the locks off the docks. But the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) refused, so the lockout was ended by a court injunction, and the dispute is now under the jurisdiction of a federal judge. That means employers can ask for fines against the union, if they continue to allege that dockworkers are not working fast enough.
UAW members are lending their support to the ILWU fight for safe, secure jobs. During the employer lockout, for example, members of UAW Local 2244 at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, Calif. were laid off. Their plant, a joint venture between GM and Toyota, relies on critical parts shipped from Japan, which were unavailable during the PMA lockout.
Local 2244 President Tito Sanchez had no doubts about who was responsible for putting his members out on the street. Sanchez, backed by members of his local, spoke at a rally in support of ILWU members on Oct. 5, laying the blame squarely on the port owners for causing the lockout.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, meanwhile, said the White House should go a little slower before using the heavy-handed mechanism of a Taft-Hartley injunction.
“Federal intervention in labor disputes is a bad idea,” said Gettelfinger. “It's an especially bad idea when carried out by a president who has tried repeatedly to limit — and even eliminate — the right of workers to join unions and bargain collectively.”
Dockworkers are rightly worried, he said, “that the White House is preparing to team up with the PMA to impose a settlement on the employer's terms.”
“The federal government,” said Gettelfinger,
“should not get into the business of writing contracts
between labor and management.”
