ILWU Coast Committee to discuss tentative labor contract

Dissidents worry about future of the “last militant union in the U.S.”    The International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s Coast Longshore Committee will meet next week in San Francisco, starting on Monday, to review the tentative agreement reached with the Pacific Maritime Association last month. Meanwhile, the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, a group that has openly criticized ILWU leadership and the proposed deal, will also hold a forum.
   If the Coast Longshore Committee recommends ratification, the tentative contract will be mailed to all ILWU members and they will vote on whether to approve the pact.
   The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, which includes some current and retired members of the union, said they have organized a forum on Tuesday evening, “Which Way for The ILWU – Militant Unionism or Business Unionism?”
   “The ILWU has a proud history of class struggle and the fight for democratic principles codified in the Ten Guiding Principles of the ILWU. Today ILWU officials flaunt these union principles, using top down control to direct longshore workers to cross picket lines and keep contract negotiations secret,” said the group in a notice publicizing the meeting.
   Elsewhere on its website, the group says “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common… We oppose the ‘team concept’ of labor collaboration with management and deference to the anti-labor laws which reinforce capitalist domination.”
   The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee argues the proposed contract “gives employers a free hand to automate without counter demands of shorter shifts tied to wage increases and follows on the tail of the concessionary grain contracts at EGT and the Northwest Grain agreements. Left unchecked, it will gut ILWU’s coastwide power and bury the last militant union in the U.S.”
   Anthony Leviege and Stacey Rodgers, two members of the Oakland/San Francisco ILWU Local 10, penned an article on the site that says, “In the past Local 10 has called for 4 shifts @ 6 hours work with 8 hours pay. That adds another shift and maintains wages. This new TA (tentative agreement) claims to trade wage increases for the loss of jobs. That’s a bad trade-off for workers. It widens the gap in wages between skilled and basic jobs while not protecting those jobs on the bottom.”
   The group also criticized the decision by the union to bring arbitrators back before the contract is ratified and wanted to know if the new contract removed a 1961 memorandum of understanding between the ILWU and Teamsters. It also said port truckers should be organized into the ILWU.