Progressive Longshoremen Fight Against ‘Race to Bottom’

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5924/longshoremen_fight_on_several_fronts/

Friday April 30 9:54 am


International Longshore and Warehouse Union members picket in Los Angeles, Calif. in 2002. The west coast union representing shipping and logistics workers has been more successful in winning contracts that protect workers than its east coast counterpart. (Photo by Mike Nelson/Getty Images)


By Kari Lydersen

“Fifteen guys on the docks with a lot of money and power and no union.”

That’s how Tony Perlstein of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1588 in Newark, N.J., described the future of the notoriously conservative east coast union during the Labor Notes conference in Detroit last weekend. Perlstein was among a reform slate that won leadership of the local in 2007 after it had been in federal trusteeship to route out mob corruption.

With a focus on international solidarity and a burgeoning workers’ network within the shipping and logistics industries, Labor Notes provided a forum for ILA members to air their frustration with their union and build support for their progressive reform caucus – the Longshore Workers' Coalition (LWC).

Perlstein was referring to the trend wherein fewer and fewer workers are needed on the docks because of automation and new technology…and companies essentially buy off union members with high salaries to dissuade them from organizing new members and fighting to protect jobs. As in many industries, automation has changed the face of longshoremen’s work, meaning fewer jobs and sometimes more grueling and dangerous working conditions.

“You know the employers are out there with their knives sharpened, increasing automation, making the industry even smaller,” said Perlstein. “But our leadership is not in a place where they’re serious about putting resources into organizing. So for me it’s a matter of reforming within our own union.”

FULL story at link.