Military Intervention vs. Maritime Union Power

UPDATE: Jan. 24 - Settlement reached between ILWU and EGT. Rank-and-file longshore workers approved the agreement that requires all EGT work to be dispatched from the Local 21 hiring hall. ULP charges and other litigation has been dropped, but damage claims against ILWU totalling $300,000 still stand. And EGT is not required to keep workers on the job if there is no grain to move. While EGT will employ ILWU labor, as part of the agreement its lease with the port has been amended so that EGT is not obligated by the port authority to hire members of any union at the terminal. The pact reopens negotiations for a labor contract and the union must must ask all outside supporters, including Occupy, to call off all picket actions unless collective bargaining talks break down.

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January 21, 2012

Published at Common Dreams.

For the first time in 40 years, the U.S. Armed Forces will be deployed to intervene in a labor dispute, facilitating a scab operation against union dockworkers at the Port of Longview in Washington.

In the long dispute between International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) Local 21 and EGT Development, the international conglomerate is now poised to make its first grain shipment from its new $200 million export terminal, violating its contract with the publicly-owned port and the union’s jurisdiction on the waterfront.

But it may take an army to cross the picket line.

The ILWU has fought militantly against EGT’s employment of non-ILWU labor at its new facility in Longview where both leaders and rank-and-file activists have engaged in civil disobedience, blockading grain shipments by rail and facing off with police. On January 3rd ILWU President Robert McEllrath sent a letter to dockworkers explaining that EGT would likely receive its first vessel to be loaded for grain export at the terminal this month.

“We have been told that this vessel will be escorted by armed United States Coast Guard, including the use of small vessels and helicopters, from the mouth of the Columbia River to the EGT facility,” McEllrath wrote.

He added that the facility itself will be guarded by a massive presence of law enforcement, dispatched from multiple jurisdictions in the area.

Last week the San Francisco Labor Council adopted a resolution condemning the use of the military to escort the ship.

“This is the first known use of the U.S. military to intervene in a labor dispute on the side of management in 40 years – not since the Great 1970 Postal Strike when President Nixon called out the Army and National Guard in an (unsuccessful) attempt to break the strike,” according to the resolution.

“The use of the Armed Forces against labor unions is something you expect to see in a police state.”

The specter of Coast Guard vessels and helicopters escorting a scab grain ship to help break the union comes on the heels of President Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, a law that codifies a new level of militarization in domestic law enforcement.  

But while the timing may be coincidental, the decision to militarily intervene in this particular labor struggle is not. The ILWU, a union with a radical reputation, has fought aggressively against EGT’s union-busting enterprise and the stakes are high for both sides.

“EGT is attempting to break the master grain agreement and become the first grain export terminal in the Pacific Northwest to operate without ILWU,” McEllrath explained back in September.

EGT is owned by three corporations – Bunge North America, Itochu Corporation, and STX Pan Ocean. Bunge, a grain cartel player and dominating partner in EGT, insisted in negotiations that ILWU submit to two 12-hour straight-time shifts per day. Bunge also refused to allow any longshoremen work in the master console of the facility. The workers bargained with Bunge for almost 14 months before negotiations broke down early last year.

In May EGT began violating its lease agreement with the port by contracting with a third party using labor from International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 701. ILWU’s hard-won agreement with the port that guarantees all work be done by its members has been in place for nearly 80 years. The IUOE has been roundly condemned by the labor movement throughout the Pacific Northwest for providing scab labor at the terminal.  

Longshore workers escalated the fight over the summer as informational pickets gave way to more confrontational direct actions. In July workers forced a train delivering grain to the terminal to turn back as several hundred workers blocked the tracks. When the ILWU blockaded trains again in September the workers’ action was met with riot police armed with rubber bullets and tear gas. In response, some ILWU members and allies reportedly cut brake cables and dumped grain from train cars. Several ports in the region were shut down by the union for two days in early September.

But EGT has won court injunctions against ILWU, effectively restricting pickets and condemning what it calls “violent protest.” Over the past several months 220 members and supporters have been arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience, including McEllrath and the president of Local 21. The union has also been slapped with over $300,000 in fines for blocking trains and trespassing on EGT property.

Police brutality and surveillance used to intimidate the workers have led to protests by members of the ILWU Ladies Auxiliary. In September two Local 21 officials were arrested when they tried to defend a 57-year old woman who was arrested and injured by cops during a nonviolent civil disobedience action to block a train carrying wheat to the new facility. Both union officials were tackled, held down by police and pepper-sprayed in the eyes.

Yet, in addition to finding itself up against police violence and a pack of Fortune 500 companies, the ILWU has had to contend with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which has taken management’s side in the dispute. The NLRB has called for an end to what it describes as “violent and aggressive” picketing by ILWU members.

For McEllrath, the NLRB’s stance is not surprising. Since the 1949 Taft-Hartley Act, the central role of the NLRB has often been “to protect commerce at the expense of workers,” he argued in a statement to workers.

The impact of the struggle in Longview could be far-reaching.

A victory for EGT might unravel and break the ILWU entirely. A dangerous precedent would be set as other grain elevators will be emboldened to spurn longshore jurisdiction up and down the West Coast. Indeed, the end result in Longview will seriously affect the union’s bargaining strength in 2014 when ILWU is set to negotiate its master agreement with the Pacific Maritime Association.

And in the context of nationwide attacks on labor unions and collective bargaining rights, the outcome in this battle could have sweeping consequences for organized labor and workers beyond the ports.

But even with the stakes so high for labor, the national leadership of the AFL-CIO has been virtually mum on the conflict. Both the ILWU and IUOE are affiliated with the AFL-CIO whose president, Richard Trumka, has described the struggle as merely a “jurisdictional dispute.”

It’s unclear why Trumka has not been compelled to draw the line as one of his federation’s members is raiding the jurisdiction of another AFL-CIO union. But if he is willing to allow EGT to potentially break the ILWU in order to avoid condemning IUOE and risk creating a rift between that union and the AFL-CIO, it may boil down to money.

As a relatively conservative union closely aligned with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters which left the AFL-CIO in 2001, the Operating Engineers have intimated their intent to follow the Carpenters’ lead and pull out of the AFL-CIO as well. In 2006 the IUOE quit the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, a move that indicated differences with the federation.

It’s possible that Trumka is reluctant to call out the IUOE for its behavior in Longview because losing the Operating Engineers’ roughly $3 million in yearly membership dues to the AFL-CIO is a bigger financial loss compared to the ILWU’s less-than $300,000 annual payment.

Whatever the case may be, what hangs in the balance at the Port of Longview is the survival of a union whose strength is defined by both its militant history and its powerful hold at a critical juncture of global commerce. Even in its recent history, the ILWU has stood out in the labor movement for its use of industrial action in solidarity with social justice movements around the world. The ILWU has shut down ports on the West Coast to protest South African Apartheid, the World Trade Organization, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in support of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.  

Now longshore workers are asking for solidarity with their own struggle. On January 2nd the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Central Labor Council passed a resolution to “call out to the friends of labor and the ‘99 percent’ everywhere to come to the aid of ILWU Local 21.”

Much was made of the tensions that flared between ILWU officials and Occupy during the West Coast Port Shutdown called by the Occupy movement in December. While many ILWU rank-and-file members and port truck drivers joined Occupy activists in the port action, critics accused Occupy protesters of calling a strike without ILWU approval. Of course, there are some Occupy activists who do not understand organized labor and who have failed to work cooperatively with unions and their members. There are also some in the labor movement who failed to see the December 12th action for what it was – a community picket, not a strike.  

Still, the Occupy movement has pledged its full support for workers in the fight against EGT. Occupy Oakland is organizing a caravan of activists to join protesters in Longview pending the arrival of the scab grain ship, and Occupy protesters from Portland and Seattle are also mobilizing for action at the terminal.

The Occupy call has gone out nationwide, urging tens of thousands to converge on Longview while others are encouraged to organize solidarity actions in their cities targeting EGT and its shareholder locations. On Monday Occupy Oakland and other supporters will march to protest military intervention against longshore workers.

Solidarity from the Occupy movement may be decisive in this labor battle.

The workers are fighting to defend fair standards and working conditions for the 99 percent at the docks. They are confronting a profit-hungry syndicate of the one percent. EGT has complained about the $1 million in extra labor costs for ILWU work while its biggest shareholder, Bunge, made $2.5 billion in profit in the U.S. alone in 2010.   

Dockworkers will need the support of Occupy and other allies, especially as their union faces the wrath of the courts and the overall strictures of labor law. As McEllrath wrote to ILWU members, “Locals need to be aware of the narrow path that we must cut through [with] a federal labor law (the Taft-Hartley Act) that criminalizes worker solidarity, outlaws labor’s most effective tools, and protects commerce while severely restricting unions.”

In the coming days, EGT will attempt to ship grain with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, an entity whose roots go back to 1790 when then-Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton established a fleet to collect import tariffs and crack down on piracy.

The Coast Guard may be an appropriate force to intervene at the ports from the perspective of the ruling class, which has always considered the power of organized labor as a kind of piracy.   

For the workers in Longview, fighting for the very heart and soul of the modern labor movement, only solidarity can fortify their picket line against the marauding one percent.    

Remembering Pittston: 99 Strikers who Occupied before Occupy

December 15, 2011

Published at Counterpunch, Common Dreams and Socialist Worker.

After a year of revolutions, strikes, and protest occupations, a new era of struggle has shifted the political landscape. Workers and the poor have taken to the streets, occupying public squares and striking across the globe – from Egypt to Greece to cities across the U.S.

In particular, the Occupy movement in the U.S. has helped to mainstream radical critiques of the capitalist system. The movement’s bold tactics have terrified the ruling one percent, which has lashed out violently to protect its power and wealth from the fury of the 99 percent.

When it comes to breaking the rules of the one percent, a natural yet complicated alliance between Occupy and the labor movement offers today’s new struggle against economic inequality historical lessons written by the organized working class. Long before Occupy, the labor movement shaped a tradition of militancy in the United States – a tradition of factory occupations and civil disobedience in the fight for justice and workers power.

But these lessons are by no means limited to the great labor upsurge of the 1930s. One of the most militant labor battles since the post-war strike wave took place in 1989 when mineworkers at Pittston Coal fought what at times could be described as a guerilla war against their union-busting employer.

Similar to today, the Pittston strike was waged in a period of unrelenting anti-worker attacks. Beginning with PATCO and Ronald Reagan’s success in breaking a strike of 12,000 air traffic controllers, the 1980s saw the full force of the law used to snuff out the power of unions. Labor was cornered, facing a coordinated employers’ offensive enabled by Taft-Hartley and a whole body of laws decidedly stacked against workers.

When Virginia-based Pittston Coal refused to sign onto an industry standard contract covering the health and retirement benefits of 2,000 mineworkers, the United Mine Workers of American (UMWA) set out on a corporate campaign to pressure the company. After 14 months of working without a contract, Pittston remained intransigent, threatening to force its own contract on workers as it began hiring scab labor.

In April the workers struck. The UMWA declared that the strike was in response to unfair labor practices – in particular, the hiring of replacement workers. Standard picketing soon gave way to more aggressive tactics after Pittston won court injunctions that limited pickets. The company also used state troopers to escort replacement miners and coal trucks passed picket lines.

A phase of civil disobedience ensued as workers conducted sit-down strikes and formed blockades to stop scab trucks on the roads leading to the mines. The Daughters of Mother Jones, a group formed by miners’ wives and other supporters, organized a sit-in at Pittston’s headquarters, occupying the building for over 30 hours. At its height, the strike involved over 500 women who led strike activities, including road blockades and slow-moving convoys to delay coal trucks.  

Pittston went to court and won millions of dollars in fines against the union and strike leaders were briefly jailed for purported vandalism associated with the civil disobedience campaign. In the meantime, strikers established Camp Solidarity, a recreational park used to accommodate people from across the country who came to support the strike. During the course of the Pittston struggle, up to 50,000 supporters traveled to southwest Virginia.

In September, an action referred to as “Moss 3” became one of the defining moments of the strike. The UMWA secretively planned a takeover of Pittston’s Moss 3 Preparation Plant. Dressed in camouflage, a group of 99 strikers moved in on the plant, supported by thousands of strikers and supporters who gathered outside. The 99 mineworkers peacefully sat down inside Moss 3 and halted production. After occupying the plant for four days, the workers walked out when word spread that Pittston had called in the National Guard to eject the strikers.     

Following the sit-down strike, a wave of wildcat strikes characterized by more violent activity took hold. At its peak, nearly 37,000 wildcat strikers across eight Appalachian and Midwestern states joined the fight in solidarity with Pittston workers. Strikers used jack rocks and plastic pipes studded with nails to disable trucks and threw rocks at company vehicles.

In addition to camouflage that was used as the official clothing among strikers, individual supporters wore masks and set up picket lines at other mines in order to spread the strike. Felled trees were used to block coal-hauling roads and some trucks were reportedly hit with bullets.

After a car bomb exploded outside of Pittston’s headquarters, the union asked workers engaged in unauthorized strikes to temporarily return to work. But mineworkers also claimed that some of the violence and vandalism was being committed by Vance Security, Pittston’s security force, in an effort to smear the union.

Although the wildcat actions were illegal and not authorized by the union, UMWA officials did not explicitly condemn them or their tactics. In total, over 4,000 people were arrested during the struggle.

In February 1990, having successfully defeated Pittston’s union-busting drive, the mineworkers ended the strike. The workers held on to their employer-paid healthcare and retirement benefits and even won a wage increase.

Union negotiator and author Joe Burns notes that the UMWA was able to buck the anti-labor trend of the 1980s by using strategic flexibility and militancy at Pittston that went well beyond the bounds of the law.

“Led by Richard Trumka, before he went on to become president of the AFL-CIO, the Pittston struggle would ultimately show how a committed and unified international union with a militant membership and workers willing to disregard the restrictions of the system of labor control could fight back against a union-busting company.”

Indeed, few remember that today’s head of the largest labor federation in the U.S. stood at the helm of this rebellious struggle.

“If we give in to what Pittston wants, it’ll set a pattern for other companies that will cause further erosion and finish us,” Trumka told the New York Times during the strike. “People keep asking how long we can hold out. The answer: one day longer than Pittston.”

Trumka’s words could be repeated today in the Occupy movement, only protesters might say that we will hold out one day longer than the one percent. Today Trumka stands at the helm of the union movement where, among other things, he helps to channel labor’s political weight into the Democratic Party – the same party whose mayors have been leading the charge against Occupy protesters.  

But the Occupy movement can learn a great deal from past struggles in the labor movement, even looking back no further than three years ago to Republic Windows and Doors. Like mineworkers at Pittston, in 2008 some 200 laid-off workers in Chicago occupied their shuttered factory for six days demanding severance pay. And they won.

The Occupy movement has now twice shut down West Coast ports during days of action that have combined Occupy and the power of labor at the point of production. The idea of a general strike, if not yet its actual realization, is back on the table.

In Washington D.C., across the street from Occupy DC at McPherson Square, a seven-story building with luxuriant arched windows stands at the corner of 15th and I Streets. A plaque on the side facing the square reads, “Associated with the American Labor Movement since the 1930s, this building served for over two decades as organized labor’s command post under the stewardship of the United Mine Workers of America President John L. Lewis.” 

It’s a visual reminder that the roots of Occupy lie in the foundations of working-class struggle – foundations built by organized labor. From the 99 strikers at Pittston to the 99 percent movement today, the tradition of disrupting the profit system of the one percent is alive and well.      

Occupying Picket Lines as the Shock Doctrine Goes Postal

November 24, 2011

[SubDisp Exclusive]

On Saturday the Maryland and DC AFL-CIO Biennial Convention voted on a resolution in support of Occupy encampments in Washington, DC and Baltimore, pledging to donate $3,000 to each occupation and declaring that the local labor movement considers Occupy Wall Street a picket line not to be crossed by affiliate unions.

Two days later, Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), did just that. Walking passed a noisy picket formed by dozens of Occupy DC protesters and postal workers, Rolando entered the National Press Club building where Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe delivered an austerity rationalization speech on cuts to the U.S. Postal Service.

Donahoe is committed to “restructuring” the U.S. Postal Service – that is, he is leading the way in privatization efforts using the pretext of a manufactured budget crisis that has left the Postal Service on the verge of bankruptcy. A 2006 congressional mandate requires the Postal Service to pre-fund its retiree health benefits 75 years in advance over the next decade. As postal unions point out, no other business or public agency shoulders such an onerous burden. The Postal Service dishes out $5.5 billion a year to meet this requirement, essentially paying into retiree benefits of people who haven’t even been born yet.

The financial problems precipitated by the Bush-era mandate point to a closely followed shock doctrine script for austerity and privatization of the 236-year-old public mail service.

As such, disaster capitalists like Donahoe are pushing to layoff more than 120,000 workers, shut down up to 4,000 post offices and cut Saturday delivery. This constitutes the single largest attack in the war on public sector workers. The Postal Service supports 9 million jobs nationwide and is the largest employer of African American men and veterans. At a time of record unemployment, which is disproportionately impacting Black communities, Donahoe is on a crusade to eliminate over 200,000 jobs over the next ten years.

The Postmaster General is looking to renegotiate union contracts in an effort to implement crippling austerity measures that would break the unions and move to privatize the public Postal Service. In the meantime, the Postal Service is a self-funded agency financed by the sale of its products and services. It collects no revenue from taxes and over the last four years the agency took in $600 million in profit. 

In response to these attacks, protesters from Occupy DC, postal workers and other supporters paid Donahoe a visit at his speech on Monday. While activists chanted outside against cuts and calling for Donahoe’s resignation, several protesters managed to get inside the ticketed event. Shortly after the Postmaster General began speaking, Occupy activists started a mic check – the signature amplification protest tactic of the new movement – and disrupted Donahoe.

Declaring, “We are the 99 percent,” protesters called for saving the U.S. Postal Service and stopping the cuts and attacks on workers. As they were escorted out, they chanted “Hey hey, ho ho – Donahoe has got to go.”

Meanwhile, NALC president Rolando sat at a banquet table in the company of other bigwigs, and remained silent. He later proposed ways the union could help save the Postal Service money, including an undisclosed plan to find “a new approach to health benefits.” At the same time, the union is in them middle of contract negotiations with the Postal Service, which were extended through December 7 just before the previous contract was set to expire on Sunday.

Days before the National Press Club event, Kenneth Lerch, president of NALC Branch 3825, teamed up with Occupy DC activists to plan an action in response to Donahoe’s austerity attacks. However, when word of the action reached union officials at the national level, including Rolando, union leaders made every effort to squash the protest, calling around to locals to discourage them from working with Occupy DC and urging Lerch to withhold his local’s support for the action.

“I think it’s quite regrettable that he [Rolando] would cross the picket line with all these American citizens chanting to save the Postal Service, and he couldn’t even stop and say a few words of encouragement to those walking the picket,” said Lerch.

The union’s reason for responding in this way is unclear. One would think the union would gladly support a protest in which Occupy activists were rallying in defense of its members. But union leaders like Rolando are unfortunately not unique within the labor movement. All too often, union officials are more comfortable with collaborating with management rather than mobilizing for militant actions that bring out rank-and-file members whose involvement is seen as a threat to the top-down control of union leaders. 

Rolando is the type of union leader who is leery of the Occupy movement and its involvement in labor struggles. The prospect of the 99 percent movement inspiring and empowering rank-and-file members to take bold action encroaches on the power of union president’s like Rolando to micromanage contract fights and other campaigns.

The position of NALC at the national level toward Occupy DC protesters who want to defend the jobs of postal workers stands in sharp contrast to other unions, like those at the Maryland and DC AFL-CIO convention last weekend, which are eager to work with and support the Occupy movement.  

A delegation of Occupy DC and Occupy Baltimore activists attended the convention to speak to union delegates about the movement. They thanked labor for all of its material support, including donations of food, tents, tarps and other resources. Occupy DC activists stressed the importance of solidarity between labor and the Occupy movement, asking delegates how they could support various labor struggles in the area. At the same time, they spoke of the need to get more union members involved in the movement.

“We love the food, the tents – but more than anything else, we need numbers,” said Caty McClure, an Occupy DC organizer who was joined on stage with others who recently formed a labor committee at Occupy DC .

The resolution passed by labor delegates advising all union members to treat the Occupy movement as a picket line marks a crucial step in deepening the relationship between unions and the 99 percent movement. With the escalation of police violence against Occupy protests in cities across the country, the support of rank-and-file union members will be instrumental for activists speaking out against economic inequality and the boundless greed of the one percent.

“Protest movements, like strike lines and organizing campaigns do not have curfews and are not 9 to 5 activities,” the resolution reads. “And in doing so, we recognize and will work to protect the right for occupiers to protest 24 hours a day, on-site, with proper protection, including food, medical supplies, water and tents.”

The resolution further states that the AFL-CIO will support any “unionized or non-unionized worker who refuses to break up, raid or confiscate the belongings of protesters” and urges “unions representing public workers and public safety workers to not participate in such activity as to deny the rights of occupiers.”

As police violence against Occupy Wall Street encampments has forced activists in many cities to turn to a new phase of struggle, some protesters are pushing the focus of the movement toward Washington, DC, where the movement’s camp at McPherson Square has faced comparatively mild police hostility. 

Encampments from Manhattan to Portland have been forcibly – and violently – evicted in the past two weeks. Disturbing images from a video of UC Davis campus police officers using pepper-spray on peaceful student protesters have sent more shockwaves around the country, further enraging the 99 percent. Working class and poor people are coming to understand the role of the police in relation to social movements. Each week they see the forces of the state reacting more viciously against ordinary people who dare to protest against the glaring economic injustices that pervade our society.

The stepped-up repression shows how threatened the one percent is by this movement. The super-rich who are hoarding the wealth and destroying social services are ideologically bankrupt and thus have nothing left to rely on except sheer force.

Mobilizing rank-and-file workers to join the Occupy movement is crucial for bringing the social power of the working class into the fight against Wall Street and Corporate America, and defending occupations against police violence. With a focus on the rank-and-file, the Occupy movement can lessen the danger of being co-opted by unions like SEIU that might aim to insert their Democratic electoral agenda into a movement whose strength is largely derived from its independence from both political parties.

While SEIU president Mary Kay Henry can throw an early endorsement behind Obama one day and get protested in an act of civil disobedience on the Brooklyn Bridge with Occupy Wall Street protesters the next, the Occupy movement cannot afford to be steered in that direction. Any expectation that protesters will roll up their sleeping bags and start knocking on doors for Obama must be vigorously argued against within the movement.

This week, about a hundred Occupy protesters arrived in D.C. after marching from Wall Street and picking up other demonstrators along the way. “Occupy the Highway” may signal shift in momentum from Wall Street, the movement’s birthplace, to K Street, the playground for corporate lobbyists in the heart of the nation’s capital.

The union movement can play a decisive role in bringing more of the 99 percent out onto the streets in order to defend and advance the Occupy movement. Above all, that will require the involvement of rank-and-file workers because, as demonstrated this week with the action against the Postmaster General, more than a few union leaders are either unprepared or unwilling to fight.