DH wonders: What makes them like this? And unlike every other union in the USA?
B echoes: Yeah, how can the ILWU kick so much ass?
JG replies: If I were not in the middle of vacating my post in Japan and dealing with 101 logistical hassles, I would compose a thoughtful treatise on said topic, but I'll furnish a short and sloppy attempt at an half-assed answer nonetheless. Back when I was an avowed anarcho-commie, I thought a revived and emboldened ILWU held the fate of humanity in its hands. (Then about six or seven years ago I decided it was Chinese victims of ecological catastrophe and protaganists of ecological socialism -- ah, the tireless and fruitless quest for the "universal class.")
Anyway, to the questions. The dead weight of history plays a huge role. The East Coast stevedores got all mobbed up and bore that legacy; the West Coast wharfies were forged in the cauldron of the San Francisco general strike of 1934, Harry Bridges' eventual leadership, CP members and symps in the rank and file, and all that followed from it. (At least two good comparative studies have been done on this.)
When containerization came along in the mid-late 1960's, the ILWU tops controversially signed on to the M&M (Modernization and Mechanization) Agreement, in which the ILWU traded acceptance of technological upgrading for control of the hiring hall. Syndicalist types denounced this as a sell out, especially of the younger and prospective rank-and-filers whose labor-power would be subdued or never demanded, but... ...the pink (if not red) culture of the ILWU was kept alive through thick and thin by institutional memory, the workerist milieu of places like San Pedro and the East Bay, ILWU propaganda organs (the Dispatcher -- word!), and decent elected officials whose feet were kept to the fire by the democratic structure alluded to in the article posted by Joseph Catron. Politically-tinged day-long work stoppages have recurred every three or four years in Sea-Tac, SF-Oaktown, and LA-LB; for example, verboten shipments from Pinochet's Chile and apartheid South Africa were blockaded in the 1970's and 1980's. I participated in onesuch solidarity picket at some undetermined moment in the 1990's which I shall not name. Here is one not-so-obscure secret though. The c/v ratio in trans-Pacific shipping is through the roof; the quayside labor component of the final cost of sending a "can" (i.e. container) of, say, DVD machines from Shenzhen to Chicago via Long Beach is miniscule. The employers' coterie (the Pacific Maritime Association) may huff and puff about a full frontal attack on the ILWU, but in the end they are willing to put up with a bunch of feisty unionists in the name of labor-management peace and the uninterrupted circulation of sea-land capital. The feds are another issue entirely; the Bushies' invocation of the Patriot Act (which admittedly I did not keep track of carefully) was the most mortal threat the ILWU faced in a good long while. I wrote part of a dissertation chapter on this a couple of lives ago, but most of what I once knew has been lost to the cobwebs a few lagers too many. Perhaps this is unkind, but my impression is that today large portions of the rank-and-file are not terribly politicized, but given their demographic makeup they have good instincts and whenever radicals inside the organization call for this or that day of action, they are happy to take a day off and tune up their low rider, take the kids to the amusement park, head for the cineplex, or whatever. It's a hardcore left coast multicultural working class/labor aristocracy scene, and it'll bring tears to a popular frontist's eyes.
John GulickAkita-city, Akita-ken JP (for about 60 more hours anyway)
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