The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.30           August 24, 1998 
 
 
Tugboat Pilots End 83-Day Strike  

BY TOM LEONARD AND TONY DUTROW
HOUSTON - The Pilots Agree Association announced June 25 that it was ending its 83-day strike for safer conditions, better pay, and union recognition for 3,000 tugboat pilots, according to the June 25 St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The strike began April 4 against 98 barge companies that control 90 percent of the cargo shipped on the inland waterways, ports, and intracoastal shipping lanes. Combined with rail transport, these bulk cargo carriers are the chief means to ship coal, grain, and other commodities.

Tugboat pilots participated nationwide, from the Great Lakes and canals to the Mississippi and its tributaries to the Gulf. It was spearheaded by 800 of the 1,400 licensed pilots who are members of Pilots Agree and affiliated with the Masters, Mates and Pilots Union (MM&P). Both of these unions are part of the International Longshoremen's Association.

Bill Bruner, a representative of Pilots Agree, said the effective date of the end of the walkout would be August 3, 1998. About 400 pilots remained on strike at the time of the union's June 25 announcement.

Pilots Agree is trying to organize more of the workforce, distributing up to 15,000 union cards to deckhands (the so- called nonlicensed workers) in addition to pilots not yet signed up. Deckhands will be part of its affiliated union, the MM&P.

As soon as pilots walked down the gangplank, the bosses retaliated with firings and a media blitz downplaying the impact of the strike. Charges of sabotage were floated after a spate of barge accidents. One near St. Louis caused 137 barges to lose their moorings and careen down the Mississippi.

The bosses brought in the FBI to investigate. Their "findings" were used to bolster the charge of sabotage, although the gumshoes found no evidence linking the union. The St. Louis Harbor Association chimed in to post a reward of $25,000 to imply some criminal act was responsible, rather than the lax safety conditions Pilots Agree was hoping to expose.

The U.S. Coast Guard was used in a similar fashion by the barge owners and their industry association, the American Waterway Operators. Pilots Agree charged the USCG with relaxing safety standards during the strike, permitting brazen violations of tow limits, and allowing pilots to exceed the 12-hour shift maximum.

Workers along the waterways responded to PA's call for solidarity. For example, Alabama miners honored tow boat picket lines, refusing to dig coal May 1 and May 4 at the Shoal Creek mine owned by the Drummund Co. The coal bosses were forced to get a federal court injunction to force the miners back to work.

United Food and Commercial Workers members at Tate & Lyle's Domino Sugar refinery near New Orleans also honored the tow boat pilots' picket line when they showed up at that company's bulk cargo dock in April. Domino's bosses retaliated swiftly to back the barge owners, disciplining workers for "violating... the labor agreement."

Pilots Agree and the MM&P have called for a meeting August 22 in Memphis to discuss the impact of the strike and future efforts to continue organizing workers in this industry.

 
 
 
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