On Wed, 2 Oct 2002 06:32:15 EDT DoreneFC at aol.com wrote:
> The ILWU is NOT on STRIKE. They are LOCKED OUT,
> ordered to leave with the gates padlocked
> behind them!
>
> Oakland isn't the only place with military
> cargo; local Seattle ILWU folks are on the news
> talking about military cargo too. For the life
> of me I am not sure why: the Co is who locked
> out, but the military cargo sounds like a
> pretext for Bush to send in the national guard,
> except of course several local politicians are
> on record telling the Feds to butt out!
>
> I would be curious to know if people on this
> list have heard from union folks concrete
> descriptions of the job actions they have been
> doing. I do not entirely believe the corporate
> flacks, but here the union themselves have
> alluded to such in semi-public presentations.
>
> For myself, I entertain romantic visions of
> local union supporters camping out at the gates
> of the docks with the workers inside als
> Solidarity backers outside the Lenin shipyards.
> It didn't happen and as far as I can tell
> wasn't even asked for, but there's the idea....
>
> DoreneC
Back in the 1950s, containerization resulted in the loss of a great many waterfront jobs, and the longshore unions protested long and hard about that, too, mainly because the number of jobs expected to be lost due to this technological advance. Given the increased efficiency and decreased costs containerization has allowed ocean shipping over the past 40 years, I don't know anyone who wishes it never happened.
Today, the number of jobs at stake for technology is 200-300 out of over 10,000 West Coast longshore jobs. But these won't be jobs LOST, just jobs not farmed out to the ILWU. From what I've heard, the PMA has promised that no ILWU workers currently on the roster will lose their jobs. Whether that's true or not, who knows. But, as technology advances, jobs are almost always lost, whether they are union or not. Unions happen to get all the publicity (and the average annual pay of over $80K, lucky bastards) while the rest of us get unemployment.