Lockout looms for ILWU workers grain ports, scabs brought in

[Sasha]

Lockout Looms as Longshoremen Reject Contract at Pacific NW Grain Terminals

posted by GOLDY on MON, DEC 24, 2012 at 4:39 PM

Over 3,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) who have been working at nine Pacific Northwest grain export terminals without a contract since September 30, have overwhelmingly rejected the "last, best, and final" contract offered by grain shippers, setting the stage for would could be a long and bitter lockout. Grain operators have reportedly contracted with a Delaware company that specializes in providing strikebreakers, many of whom are already on call, waiting in area hotel rooms for the lockout to begin.

The ILWU claims that the grain terminal operators have demanded more than 750 concessions from local workers.

About a quarter of the nation's grain exports and about half its wheat exports move through Pacific Northwest ports, including the Port of Seattle's grain facility at Terminal 86, just north of the downtown. According to the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, Washington is the 4th largest wheat producing state in the nation, and at $925 million, wheat is Washington's third most valuable agricultural product (after apples and milk). Between 85 and 90 percent of Washington's wheat harvest is exported overseas.

This is big business for both Washington wheat growers and grain exporters, not to mention the 3,000 workers whose jobs are now being threatened by professional scabs. So if the industry does lockout the union and bring in replacement workers, don't be surprised if the dispute turns nasty awfully damn quick.]

Source with links; http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/12/24/lockout-looms-as-longshoremen-reject-contract-at-pacific-nw-grain-terminals

Isnt the ILWU one of the most militant unions in the US? Anyone with contacts with them on the ground? If so can you ask if these ports ship to company's in amsterdam? maybe we can do some solidarity work here. Hope they give the bosses hell to pay anyways...

[subcp]

Due to the essential nature of the industry, if this dispute isn't resolved quickly, we may see Obama have his first 'PATCO Moment', and invoke the 'national emergency' provision of Taft-Hartley that lets the President intervene in labor disputes (like GW Bush did a decade ago to the ILWU).

[Dabrowski]

http://www.internationalist.org/defendilwu1211.html

http://www.internationalist.org/internationalistlogo.png
November 2012

It’s Showdown Time on the Portland Docks
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ILWU pickets block grain train to scab EGT terminal, 7 September 2011. Labor’s gotta play hardball to win. (Photo: Don Ryan/AP)

The global grain cartel, made up of some of the world’s biggest, greediest and most secretive monopolies, is gorging on record profits while hunger stalks millions of poor and working people. Now these profiteers are gunning for the hard-won gains of the working class. Their target is the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and ground zero is the Portland docks. On November 29, the Northwest Grainhandlers Agreement between the ILWU and the agribusiness/shipping cartels expired. This is a showdown. All working people must come to the defense of the ILWU.

A headline in the International Business Times (4 September) put it starkly: “Big Grain Companies Reap Profits As Global Food Prices Soar And Poor Go Hungry.” The big four – Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus, collectively known as the “ABCDs” – control up to 90 percent of the world’s grain trade, and they are making money hand over fist. Now they want to increase their bloated profits by destroying job protections, bargaining rights and safety conditions of the workers whose labor they exploit.

The employers are demanding huge givebacks from the ILWU, and they are preparing to use force to do so. The grain companies could impose their contract, or declare a lockout of union workers at any time. A strikebreaking “contractor,” J.R. Gettier Associates, has set up shop in Vancouver, WA for the last two months. Gettier, says the Portland Business Journal (28 November) “specializes in providing replacement labor and security measures during labor strikes”: i.e., scabs and thugs. A new access road, “Scab Alley,” has been built into the Port of Portland’s Terminal 5. Don’t think they won’t try to use it.

So here you have giant conglomerates, who are starving millions and forcing you to pay $4 and more for a box of cereal by jacking up prices with their monopoly power. Naturally these price gougers are defended by the bosses’ press and the bosses’ government. Under attack is the strongest union on the West Coast, which has been in the forefront of labor’s struggles for decades. On May Day 2008 the ILWU shut down all 29 Pacific Coast ports to stop the war on Iraq and Afghanistan. In this fight, WE HAVE A SIDE. The whole labor movement must prepare now for militant action to DEFEND OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THE ILWU!



http://www.internationalist.org/seiupicketoaklandport121120.jpg
The power of solidarity: on November 20, SEIU workers at the Port of Oakland picketed, shutting down the docks as ILWU Locals 10 and 34 respected their lines. (Photo: SEIU Local 1021)


Workers have the power, but we must use it, or lose it. Last week a picket by SEIU port workers shut down the Oakland docks. Right now, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California – the largest in the U.S. – are shut down by a strike of office and clerical workers (OCU) Local 63 of the ILWU. Ten container terminals are paralyzed as ILWU members refuse to cross picket lines. After months of stonewalling, the employers suddenly announce they are ready to talk. But the retail store kingpins are calling on President Barack Obama to intervene. Despite the election rhetoric, Democrats are no friends of labor: Obama represents Wall Street, not working people and hard-pressed African Americans. Next up is the Pacific Northwest, with four of the nation’s biggest grain ports located in the Portland area

The employers smell blood. They want to impose the terms of the concessionary contract at the new EGT grain terminal in Longview, WA. Last year, militant struggle by the ILWU ranks (http://www.internationalist.org/longviewbattle1111.html) blocked mile-long grain trains and mobilized over 800 union members from up and down the coast to “storm” the scab terminal. The threat of more powerful workers mobilizations, with support from Occupy activists, brought the EGT bosses to the bargaining table. But an eleventh-hour deal struck between top ILWU bureaucrats and EGT resulted in a sellout that undermined the hiring hall, allowed for non-union construction, control-room, clerk and tugboat jobs, and wrote the “slave labor” Taft-Hartley law into the contract.

Many on the left and some Occupy activists hailed the EGT contract as a victory. Dead wrong. The Internationalist (11 February) warned (http://www.internationalist.org/longviewunionbustingbeatenback1202.html) that “the union leadership made significant concessions in the bargaining. This could set the stage for future battles as other shippers demand similar terms.” Exactly that is what’s happening now. If the grain bosses are able to impose the rotten EGT terms, it will be a serious blow to the rights and living standards of all workers, union and unorganized. Crucially, East and Gulf Coast dockworkers in the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), whose contract has been extended to December 29, should mobilize together with workers on the West Coast. In case of a lockout, all U.S. ports should be struck, and there should be solidarity action around the globe.

This is class war: there are no neutrals here. The grain bosses have billions of dollars in their war chests. On their side stand the capitalist state, the media, the courts, the cops and their private armies of scab-herding security guards. Obama’s Coast Guard has announced that it will patrol the Columbia River in defense of the shippers, as it did at EGT in January. The grain merchants and the Wall Street bankers, backed up by the Democratic and Republican parties that rule this country on their behalf, think they can walk all over the millions of working people who are seeing our wages shrink, our jobs disappear and our homes foreclosed as the government ratchets up its endless wars, racist police-state repression and mass deportations of immigrants.

But without our labor, the billionaire bosses wouldn’t have a dime. If the labor movement comes to the aid of the ILWU along with the poor and oppressed African American, Asian and Latino populations, together we can bring the arrogant “ABCD” bosses to their knees!

Unions should prepare now to stand with the ILWU in building mass picket lines that scabs won’t dare to cross. This effort should be broadened to include non-union workers like the port truckers, and organizations representing all those oppressed by the rule of the billionaires – from neighborhoods fighting foreclosures to students fighting tuition hikes.

The Internationalist Group, a labor-socialist organization, is taking part in the efforts to mobilize solid support for the ILWU in their struggle with the grain bosses. We believe in the ILWU slogan, “an injury to one is an injury to all.” And that means real solidarity, not just in words but in deeds. Join with us, with your co-workers, friends and neighbors to defend the ILWU. THEIR FIGHT IS OUR FIGHT.

Don’t Fall for the Mediation Trap!
Mobilize for a Nationwide ILWU-ILA Port Strike

DECEMBER 12 – On Saturday, December 8, the Pacific Northwest Grainhandlers consortium and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union agreed to accept federal mediation. This is a trap. Federal “mediators” work for the bosses’ government, which under Democrat Obama already has the Coast Guard patrolling the Columbia River. It’s there to prevent strike pickets, as it did last January in the struggle against EGT union-busting in Longview, WA. A Taft-Hartley injunction, like Republican Bush imposed during the PMA lockout in 2002 could be next.

The grain shippers are seeking to eliminate scores of job protection clauses of the contract and are demanding “the exclusive right to take any and all action” they want to order around the workforce. There is nothing to mediate. Any contract that accepts ANY of these givebacks would be a sellout. In fact, the grain cartel is wallowing in record profits. The ILWU negotiators must not give in to pressure from the bosses and their government, as the International did at EGT, negotiating a concessionary contract that set the stage for the current battle.

The future of the union is at stake. Only a full-scale mobilization of the ILWU’s power can throw back the capitalist war on labor. On Monday, the International Longshoremen’s Association voted to authorize a strike on the East and Gulf coasts, which the Journal of Commerce (10 December) says is “all but inevitable” come December 29. The real answer to the PMA and PNG bosses is a coordinated ILWU-ILA strike shutting down all U.S. ports.

The labor bureaucracy’s “strategy” of relying on the Democratic Party is a recipe for disaster. We saw it last year in Wisconsin and now in Michigan. We need to break with the capitalist Democrats and start now building a class-struggle workers party to fight for a workers government.

[Lynx]

What is the ILWU saying? Are they willing to fight?

[subcp]

ILA is poised to strike in 4 days- longshoremen may be out on both coasts at the same time (plus river, gulf and great lakes). This could be one of the biggest strikes in years; though it's likely the shipping and manufacturing companies have made preparations as they rejected the ILA offer of extending the current contract to February 2013 (and putting the possibility of a coast wide strike on the table) and are positioning themselves to lock-out the ILWU. The multinationals are projecting extreme confidence.

[blake 3:17]

There's an FB page for the West Coast ILWU: www.facebook.com/LongshoreWorkers

It seems the companies have been preparing to try to break the union.

From the Oregonian:

Northwest grain terminal lockout would pit longshoremen against strikebreakers they call scabs
By Richard Read, The Oregonian
on December 22, 2012 at 9:00 AM, updated December 23, 2012 at 10:32 PM

Scores of out-of-state strikebreakers wait on high alert in Northwest hotel rooms, ready to replace longshoremen in case of a lockout at grain terminals.
Three fully crewed, non-union tugboats protected by armed guards stand by, prepared to keep grain ships docking. In a provocative move, a California company has moored the tugs on the Willamette River near longshore Local 8's Northwest Portland union hall.

Quietly, owners of Portland, Vancouver and Puget Sound terminals have spent months preparing for a battle royal on the waterfront, lining up troops and assets like chess pieces. The agribusiness giants have laid legal groundwork for a lockout, which could occur anytime after a Monday noon deadline.

Key developments
Labor dispute unfolds
Jan. 23: A longshore union local grants big concessions to end a bitter contract dispute at the Export Grain Terminal, or EGT, in Longview, Wash.
August: Contract talks begin between the longshore union and a group of four companies owning six Northwest terminals that compete with EGT. The employers want the same deal EGT got to cut labor costs.
Sept. 30: Grain-terminal contract expires, union members keep working at the terminals in Portland, Vancouver and the Puget Sound. Talks continue.
Oct. 15: Federal mediator is called in.
Nov. 16: Terminal owners make "last, best and final" offer.
Nov. 28: Offer deadline extended.
Dec. 8: Deadline extended again.
Dec. 11-12: Federal mediators convene further last-ditch talks.
Dec. 17: One coalition company, Temco, defects from the employers' group without explanation. The other three reject a union offer and say they're done talking.
Friday, Saturday: Members of four Northwest locals vote on the employers' "final" offer, which union negotiators oppose. Results have not been announced.
Monday: Employers have set a noon deadline to hear the union's verdict. The terminal owners, who have replacement workers and tugboats standing by, have not yet said whether or when they'll lock out longshoremen.
If Columbia Grain Inc., United Grain Corp. and Louis Dreyfus Commodities lock out dockworkers, Portland will become the new front line in a war between unions and a shadowy industry of strikebreaking companies that send tough guys across picket lines.
Confrontations can last months and turn violent.

But with billions of dollars of grain exports at stake, President Barack Obama could intervene, as President George W. Bush did in 2002, when he invoked the Taft-Hartley law to send West Coast longshoremen back to work.

One thing that probably won't happen, according to a national expert on lockouts and strikes, is permanent replacement of dockworkers, given labor laws and the tightknit, tenacious nature of the San Francisco-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

"The companies would be subject to picketing constantly, and these folks would never go away," said Michael LeRoy, a University of Illinois labor law professor. Longshore workers, he said, "can be aggressive about asserting their rights."

Longshoremen displayed that resolve last year when some were arrested for trying to block a train from entering a grain terminal in Longview, Wash. They showed it last summer, slowing Port of Portland operations in pursuit of jobs, and again in Portland and Los Angeles by making employers provide job security for guards and clerks.

Full article: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/12/northwest_grain_terminal_locko_1.html

[Art Vandelay]

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab.

A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.

Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.

When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.

No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there is a pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body with.

Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab has not.

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.

Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.

Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commision in the british army.

The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife, his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled promise from his employer.

Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country.

A scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his family and his class.

Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)

ASAB

[Dabrowski]

New article from The Internationalist: "Why We Defend the ILWU and All Workers (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-we-defend-t177590/index.html)"

Summary:
There Are No Neutrals In the Class War on the Docks
Why We Defend the ILWU and All Workers
…Including Against the Sellout Labor Bureaucracy
In recent weeks, a showdown has loomed on U.S. docks between the shipping bosses and port workers that has rattled the capitalist ruling class. On the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the International Longshoreman’s Association prepared to strike container shipping while the employers threatened to lock out 14,500 ILA members. On the West Coast, the grain shippers been demanding a giveback contract from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which would effectively bypass the union hiring hall, slash workers’ vital safety protections and gut union power. Yet in the midst of the Northwest grain battle, an Occupy activist Peter Little publishes an article vociferously arguing against the call to defend the ILWU. While posing as ultra-left, this policy if actually carried out would aid the employers who are hell-bent on destroying ILWU union power on the waterfront. And blaming sellouts on the nature of unions lets the bureaucrats off the hook. We in the Internationalist Group say: all those who stand with the exploited and oppressed must come to the defense of the ILWU in this fight. And that defense includes forthrightly opposing the capitulations and betrayals by the labor bureaucracy which sells out vital union gains in the vain hope of an impossible “cooperation” with capital, endangering the workers organizations they preside over.

[subcp]

The ILA and USMX agreed to extend contract negotiations until February 2013- it appears the company amalgamation wasn't prepared for an East Coast/Great Lakes/Rivers dockworkers strike; now they have another 2 months to prepare, and go for the throat (the container royalty fund; one of the last vestiges of major gains made by the pre-restructured working-class).

The ILWU leadership shouldn't have signed the deal with EGT- everyone knows if you give a little to one company, the rest want the same deal (and then some). Their appetite is wet. The class struggle could've potentially moved out of the hands of the union completely when Occupy and various communist and syndicalist groups got involved in Longview and the West Coast ports in general. 'Mass action' direct action tactics are necessary for this kind of frontal assault on workers control on the job, what's needed is a deeper round of actions (like tearing down fences and dumping out grain).

Alaska electrical workers did it up good in '86:


1986 - IBEW UNION INTIMIDATION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR - A long awaited damage suit against the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union was tried in Anchorage Superior Court in August 1996. Alaska Utility Construction, Inc. sued the IBEW Union for harassment, abuse, and illegal attempts to force them to sign an agreement with IBEW during the 1986 construction of a power line extension for Matanuska Electric Association to the Eklutna water plant.
During the controversy, the Anchorage Police Department and the State Troopers were forced to deploy as many as 30 uniformed officers to protect employees and property and to separate IBEW pickets from the open shop contractor's job site. The IBEW and its sympathizers were responsible for numerous acts of intimidation during the conflict including snipers firing on the jobsite, deployment of a Molotov cocktail, threats against the contractor, Aaron Downing's wife and children and against employees. These actions were preludes to the disruption and violence that occurred during the 1987 IBEW strike against Chugach Electric Association.
Chugach Electric board president Ray Kreig attended the first day of the trial and was alarmed that no public observers, press or even electric utility management was present in the courtroom. He telephoned the newspaper and TV stations but they declined to cover the trial, saying it was unimportant.


Gets the goods.