The tentative agreement will be considered by union officials and an assembly of 100 delegates from all union locals on the West Coast, which is scheduled to meet in San Francisco the week of December 9–13. The union will then hold a secret ballot membership ratification vote by longshore workers and marine clerks.

The proposal includes pension increases, a $3 an hour wage increase over the term of the contract, and a 100 percent employer-paid health benefits package.

The proposed contract would allow the shipping companies to cut jobs through increased use of technology. The jobs of more than 400 marine clerks who keep track of cargo will be eliminated. The employers have promised to avoid laying off any of those clerks by finding other jobs for them.

In 1968, some 13,000 union-registered longshore workers on the West Coast moved 54 million tons. By 2001, less than 7,700 workers moved 253 million tons. During this period annual tonnage increased almost six-fold. The new provisions on "technology" will allow the shippers to increase this speedup.

The ILWU has been fighting for a contract since the July 1 expiration of the previous agreement. In late September an 11-day boss lockout of union dockworkers closed down all Pacific Coast ports, which handle $300 billion in cargo a year. The lockout ended October 8 when President George Bush invoked the antiunion Taft-Hartley Act, imposing an 80-day "cooling-off" period. The bosses used the law to threaten the union with penalties if it carried out any job action.

Longshore workers mobilized through demonstrations, picket lines, and other protests to press their contract demands and to oppose the federal government’s intervention on the side of the bosses.

Referring to their months-long contract fight, ILWU member Richard Washington said in an interview, "We as longshoremen have other people in the labor movement watching us, so we have much responsibility in this fight. If we falter, if we compromise, it will affect others. Right now we have to be the backbone of the labor movement."

Deborah Liatos is a meat packer and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 120.  
 
 
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