Hundreds of dockworkers rallied for a contract in San Francisco July 24. The Bush administration is threatening to invoke the antiunion Taft-Hartley law to prevent workers from shutting down West Coast ports.

The following day, the ILWU announced that it had empowered its contract negotiating committee to seek strike authorization from dockworkers, due to the refusal of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) "to guarantee continuation of current levels of health benefits for new members and [its] disappointing responses to long sought technology proposals." The union officials also decided to extend until August 13 the current day-to-day extension of the ILWU-PMA contract, which expired July 1.

As at least one major railroad announced contingency plans in the event of a stoppage, PMA president Joseph Miniace called the union’s action "a threat to the economic well-being of millions of Americans.... The delegation of authority to call a strike is a threat to an already fragile economy."

More than $260 billion worth of goods travel through the 29 West Coast ports every year, representing 42 percent of all U.S. shipping trade.

The shipping capitalists point to a report prepared by Berkeley professor Stephen Cohen titled "Economic Impact of a West Coast Dock Shutdown." Cohen forecasts that $4.7 billion and 30.2 million man-hours would go down the tubes in just five days of a strike. Cohen cites the increasing dependency of U.S. manufacturers and distributors on imported goods.

"I think the vast majority of the [textile] industry will be affected," Jeffrey Hollander, the president of Florida-based Hollander Home Fashions, told Home Textiles Today magazine. "Even companies that think they don’t import, do at some point, whether it’s a vinyl bag, fill, or whatever."

The president of the National Retail Federation (NRF), Tracy Mullin, urged U.S. president George Bush to "consider immediate steps to prevent a slowdown or a shutdown...and to inform the American public of the consequences of such a scenario."

NRF-represented stores rang up $3.5 trillion in sales in 2001. "Any disruption at the West Coast ports would have serious ramifications," Mullin said, "not only to the U.S. retail sector...but also the entire U.S. economy." Officials of the International Mass Retail Association expressed similar sentiments.

Under the antilabor Taft-Hartley Act, President Bush has the executive power to order the ILWU back to work if there is a strike. In words clearly aimed at the ILWU, White House spokesman Ken Lisaius stated, "We are continuing to monitor this situation closely and encouraging both sides to continue negotiations. We are acutely aware of what a strike would do to the economy, and we would ask them to take that into consideration."  
 
Bosses call for ‘modernization’
The PMA proposes a program of "modernization" of the West Coast ports, involving the use of computerization and other technological advances to increase container traffic, drive down labor costs, and increase productivity. ILWU representatives have repeatedly said that union members should benefit from such steps--an approach that runs counter to that of the employers.

For instance, the PMA has called for the elimination of the jobs of marine clerks, who track the contents of containers. The union maintains that shipping companies are sending these jobs to other states where there is no union. Whoever does the work should be union members, say ILWU officials. They also demand increased pensions for remaining clerks.

On July 17, Miniace complained that "the union’s [contract] proposal does not adequately address the technology and efficiency needs of the West Coast waterfront."

The PMA president stated last May that he hoped for an "electronic technology pact" similar to the "Modernization and Mechanization Agreement" signed with the union in 1960. That agreement allowed the shipping companies to cite changes in ship design, the introduction of strapped loads, and the large-scale employment of containers as grounds for the gutting of various guarantees and safeguards in the union contract.

The "M&M," as the agreement is known, helped the bosses offset rising costs by cutting ship turnaround time.  
 
 
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