You mean the *employers'* adherence to safety rules, right? ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone has never admitted that the workers were engaged in a slowdown, but did admit workers were working "carefully" in light of the fact that 5 dock workers have died during the past year due to unsafe working conditions. It's not legally prudent to admit to a slowdown anyway, though I and many others think a slowdown was certainly justified given the PMA's bad faith attitude (i.e. union busting attitude) after the ILWU contract with the PMA expired on July 1.
The safety issue doesn't seem to be the most important for the ILWU right now. A strong union contract that demanded safety pecautions could take care of these concerns. The ILWU's main concern is still about the union status of new hires that could be brought in with the new technology the PMA wants to introduce; the ILWU is NOT necessearily against new technology - just against non-ILWU laborers working with any new technology the PMA bosses want to introduce.
Brian
On Thu, 10 Oct 2002, alex lantsberg wrote:
> i heard on david bacon's KPFA segment that the ILWU is trying to get CalOSHA
> and other state OSHAs to have staff at the docks to monitor the worker's
> adherence to safety rules.
>
> what are the chances of the state agencies backing up the ILWU in their work
> practices and putting pressure on the bosses for encouraging unsafe working
> conditions?
>
> al
--
"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." - Friedrich Nietzsche