Occupy the EGT

From Journal of Commerce:

ILWU clerical workers walk off jobs after 18 months of contract negotiations

International Longshore and Warehouse Union office clerical workers in Los Angeles-Long Beach broke off contract talks and set up picket lines at four container terminals after 18 months of negotiations.

ILWU dock workers walked off of their jobs at those four terminals shortly before noon on Friday, effectively shutting those sites down through the end the day.

Jim McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, which negotiates and administers waterfront contracts with ILWU longshoremen, marine clerks and foremen (but not the OCU office workers) said he was initiating labor relations committee talks that would most likely be followed immediately on Friday by PMA calling in the local arbitrator.

PMA charges that since the OCU is affiliated with the ILWU but operates independently from the larger dock workers union, the OCU picketers are not considered to have established a legitimate picket line under the waterfront contract.

Negotiations between the Office Clerical Unit of ILWU Local 63 and 14 individual employers have been underway since April 2010. The contract expired in June 2010 and the 580-member OCU union has been working without a contract since then.

Stephen Berry, the attorney representing all of the employers, said Thursday the negotiations broke down. International ILWU President Bob McEllrath, who had been participating in the negotiations, said “we” reserve the right to exercise “economic action,” Berry said.

Although the OCU is a unit of ILWU Local 63, the marine clerks union that works at the terminals, the OCU has its own contract and its own officers who handle negotiations. McEllrath and other international officers became involved in the negotiations in the fall of 2010, Berry said.

Last year the OCU workers established picket lines at several marine terminals and dock workers refused to cross the lines. PMA at that time called in the area arbitrator. He ruled that the OCU action did not constitute a legitimate picket line under the dock workers’ contract and he ordered the longshoremen to return to their jobs. Until Friday, there had been no attempted work stoppages.

Terminal operators and shipping lines that employ OCU members are seeking cost-cutting measure they say will make them more competitive. For example, the OCU normally insists that when a job opens for even few days because of illness or vacations, that it be filled from the hiring hall. Employers want to fill vacancies “as needed,” Berry said.

Also, the OCU will not allow members who may not have enough work on a particular day to shift to positions that are short of workers.

Berry said employers thought they were going to achieve a major breakthrough this summer when they offered to merge the OCU into the larger ILWU Local 63, giving the office workers full membership in the marine clerks union for the first time. The ILWU and the PMA approved the proposal, but the OCU turned it down, Berry said.

OCU President John Fageaux did not return phone calls.

OCU workers’ average earnings approach $100,000 a year. ILWU marine clerks’ wages average more than $150,000 a year including overtime and skill differential payments. The OCU members wanted to earn wages at the marine clerks’ level, but they did not want to replace their benefits with those in the marine clerks’ contract, Berry said. For example, OCU members get 12 weeks of paid vacation a year, he said.

McKenna said the Yusen Terminal and three terminals operated by Ports America were involved in Friday’s labor action. Work was proceeding normally at the other 10 terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor, he said.

In solidarity with Occupy Oakland's call for a coordinated west coast port blockade, Occupy Denver hass passed the proposal for the following solidarity action:

 In response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the world:

 Occupy Denver stands in solidary with our brothers and sisters who will be blocking the economic apparatus of the 1% by shutting down the ports of the world on Dec 12. Occupy Denver is calling for all land locked occupations to do the same with a coordinated shutdown of Walmart distribution centers throughout the United States on December 12th. The 1% through this greedy cooperation have destroyed communities throughout the world, disregarded workers natural rights, eliminated production jobs in the United States, lowered the standard of living for all, and disrupted the lives of the workers who create their wealth. At the same time coordinated nationwide police attacks have turned our cities into battlegrounds in an effort to disrupt our Occupy movement and neglect the very serious issues we are raising.

 We call on every occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local Walmart distribution center. Our eyes are on their continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, their unfair trade practices, the slave labor products that are defiling the world.These horrors are being forced on our communities through a coordinated effort between the 1% and the government of the United States through corporate kickbacks, tax credits, and a pattern of unaddressed and unenforced workers’ rights claims. Walmart is a business that has commoditized and enslaved our entire world for the benefit and profit of a very few.

 Walmart passes on significant costs to many of the states and communities where it operates because so many of the company’s Associates and their families participate in publicly-funded health care and other public assistance programs due to a lack of affordable health care from their employer. At the same time, Walmart has affected international trade policy to move its production to sweatshops in international Free Trade Zones, moving manufacturing jobs overseas, and sending much of its revenue out of local communities, driving out local businesses, which keep more consumer dollars in the local economy. Walmart has created a new kind of blight, destroying local businesses with predatory business strategies, leaving community businesses vacant and abandoned throughout the country.

Since Walmart has decimated communities and continues to attack the workers of the world, we will now shut down their distribution center in Colorado and through out the world affecting the only thing Walmart and the 1% care about: PROFIT.

SUPPORT GROWS FOR OCCUPY MOVEMENT'S COORDINATED WEST COAST SHUT DOWN ON DECEMBER 12TH

As of November 27, 2011, the Occupy movement in every major West Coast port city: Occupy LA, Occupy San Diego, Occupy Portland, Occupy Tacoma, Occupy Seattle have joined Occupy Oakland in calling for and organizing a coordinated West Coast Port Blockade and Shutdown on December 12, 2011.   Other West Coast Occupies, including Occupy Anchorage and Vancouver, Canada are planning to join the economic blockade and disruption of the 1% on that date, according to organizers.

"We're shutting down these ports because of the union busting and attacks on the working class by the 1%: the firing of Port truckers organizing at SSA terminals in LA; the attempt to rupture ILWU union jurisdiction in Longview, WA by EGT.  EGT includes Bunge LTD, a company which reported 2.5 billion dollars in profit last year and has economically devastated poor people in Argentina and Brazil. SSA is responsible for inhumane working conditions and gross exploitation of port truckers and is owned by Goldman Sachs. EGT and Goldman Sachs is Wallstreet on the Waterfront" stated Barucha Peller of the West Coast Port Blockade Assembly of Occupy Oakland.   

"We are also striking back against the nationally' coordinated attack on the Occupy movement. In response to the police violence and camp evictions against the Occupy movement- This is our coordinated response against the 1%. On December 12th we will show are collective power through pinpointed economic blockade of the 1%."

Each Occupy is organizing plans for a mass mobilization and community pickets to shut down their local Port.   The mobilization of over 60,000 people that shut down the Port of Oakland during the general strike on November 2, 2011 is the model for the West Coast efforts.  Organizers state that a police attempt to disrupt the port blockade or police violence against any city participating will extend duration of the blockade on the entire coast.

"These Ports are public. People have a right to come to the Port and protest.  The ILWU has historically honored picket lines at the Port." stated Clarence Thomas, a member of ILWU Local 10.

ILWU longshore workers are involved as individuals in the planning of the Shutdown.  "I am a longshoreman and I support the December 12^th Blockade against EGT.  EGT is a threat to the survival of the ILWU," stated Anthony Leviege, a member of Local 10.  Dan Coffman, the president of Local 21 in Longview, has publicly thanked the Occupy movement and Occupy Oakland for its actions on November 2nd.

Further interviews and details can be obtained through local Port Blockade committees and the Oakland West Coast Port Blockade Assembly.

http://shutdowntheport.com/  

Please visit the new Posters & Flyers page of this site to download PDFs and JPEGs to use in your outreach efforts.

Occupy Movement and Ports Workers:

SAME STRUGGLE, SAME FIGHT!

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PDF

EXCERPT:

Waterfront workers from Longview to Long Beach and beyond are facing a frontal attack threatening the future of our jobs and our unions.  What’s needed to defeat these employer assaults is a solid union action, shutting down the Coast. The call by the populist Occupy movement to blockade ports should be welcomed as supplementary support for labor’s struggle. President McEllrath, on Oct. 5 publicized his “solidarity with Occupy Wall Street” statement. But now, the ILWU International officers are contradicting themselves, undermining unity with Occupy and saying the union wants nothing to do with the Dec. 12 blockade. 

This is more than a ritual CYA declaration. The voice of the maritime bosses, the Journal of Commerce, (23 November) noted that the union leaders were making clear that they were hostile to the Occupy initiative. The ILWU Coast Committee issued a Nov. 21 memo slamming “outside groups intent on driving their own agendas.” The next day it followed up with a press statement “clarifying” its stand on “third-party protests.” These shameful statements go against the grain of ILWU’s militant record of solidarity actions and don’t represent the rank and file’s sentiments. ILWU is bottom up not top down. 

The Coast Committee said that a community demonstration or picket is not a picket line, as defined by the longshore contract. This flies in the face of “ILWU’s 10 Guiding Principles”, which say:
“Unions have to accept the fact that the solidarity of labor stands above all else, including even the so- called sanctity of the contract.”

Occupy’s enemies, EGT and SSA, are ILWU’s enemies too.

[snip]

Now the International turns its back on our history. We have to ask: Why would the Coast Committee place longshore workers in harms way by directing them to standby on safety if there is a large demonstration at the terminal gate when the danger to port workers is not from the protesters but the police? (Just look at the Longview longshore workers who have been beaten and pepper sprayed.) And why would the Coast Committee be concerned about a lawsuit against the union when all of these labor and community pickets were initiated by the ranks, not by the officers? Bottom up not top down!

[snip]

The ILWU has a long history of standing up to the employing class and organizing solidarity actions, often despite the International officers’ positions. This is a source of pride for our membership and the ILWU is admired by other unions for its courageous stands. Longshoremen, as always, need to link up now with other port workers, truckers, machinists, warehousemen and the Occupy movement in a fight against the port bosses for our jobs and our unions, regardless of what the union tops put out.

The Longview workers are more than thankful for the support they have already received in their fight – our fight – against EGT. Speaking at a labor rally before a Nov. 19 march called by Occupy Oakland, Local 21 president Dan Coffman said, referring to the awesome Nov. 2 march that shut down the port in Oakland, “You cannot believe what you did for the inspiration of my union members who’ve been on the picket line for 6 months!”

The ILWU must support the Occupy move to shut down West Coast ports on Dec. 12. Most importantly, we must show the power of workers when the ship arrives in Longview days later to load scab grain at the EGT terminal.

The call must go out: PORT WORKERS: SHUT DOWN ALL U.S. PORTS !!

Tonight Seattle joins 5 other West Coast cities in shutting down ports on December 12th.  With this addition, every occupation near a port on the West Coast of the US is now participating in the blockade.  Together we are unstoppable.

Submitted by Occupy Oakland Port Blockade Working Group

West coast Occupy movements plan to blockade west coast ports on December 12th. This decision is not affected by a recent memo written by International ILWU President, Robert McEllrath, and quoted by the Longshore and Shipping News. Occupy Oakland's working group on the port blockade wants to clarify the situation, so that there is no confusion on intent and support for this significant action.

1. The port blockade is being called for by the west coast Occupy movements

2. The blockade is in solidarity with the ILWU local in Longview, WA, which is fighting a move by giant grain and shipping companies to bust the union, so they can have cheaper labor. The port action is also to support LA port truckers’ drive for union recognition at SSA, a port terminal operator - 51% owned by Goldman Sachs. The blockade is also intended to disrupt the profits of the 1% by showing solidarity with those in the 99% who are under direct attack by corporate tyranny – exerting the collective muscle of the west coast occupies.

3. The ILWU rank and file have historically honored community picket lines in the port --- for example they refused to cross community picket lines to unload cargo from apartheid South Africa. They refused to cross picket lines at an Israeli ship protesting the Israeli blockade of Palestinians in Gaza.

4. The ILWU did not call for the November 2 general strike in Oakland, either. However, they did not cross the picket lines, set up by tens of thousands of people, including labor, community and student groups, at the Oakland ports. They have a history of honoring such picket lines.

5. The fact that the ILWU Coast Committee cautioned its members that if a similar situation develops on Dec. 12, longshoremen should stand by (our emphasis) in a safe area and await a decision by employers to call for an arbitrator. This is similar to past situations where ILWU members have honored community picket lines. It allows the ILWU a legal out, not to cross the lines, if the picket lines are large enough to pose a threat to their safety, as interpreted by the arbitrator.

6. ILWU Local 21, Longview, Washington, was strongly heartened and encouraged by the overwhelming support shown for them by the historic November 2 port shutdown in Oakland. Their local president spoke at Oakland Occupy’s rally last Saturday, thanking us for our support. He and other ILWU rank and file members marched with us that day.

Tacoma, Portland, San Diego and Los Angeles Occupations have all voted to blockade their ports on 12/12 at their respective General Assemblies.  This represents a huge step forward in the campaign to shut down the ports.  We urge those in other cities on the west coast to bring this issue to their general assemblies and join us in shutting down your ports on 12/12. 

Video of OccupyLA Voting to Blockade the Port: