Longshore Contract: Peter Robbed, Paul Paid, Reformers Regroup

Rank-and-file longshore workers pushed to reject another contract, after sending top officials in the East Coast Longshoremen’s union back to the bargaining table in September.

But on November 17 longshore (ILA) members approved a two-year extension to their master contract covering 12,000 workers who load and unload ships from Maine to Texas. Their contract didn’t expire till September 2010. The contract was approved by two-thirds of 9,700 voting members.

ILA leaders played on workers’ insecurities, said Leonard Riley, a member of ILA Local 1422 and co-chair of the Longshore Workers Coalition (LWC), a reform movement within the ILA.

“They scared these people to death saying we’re going to lose work to the West Coast, that tiered wages will be permanent if we vote the contract down,” he said.

Dissatisfaction centered on officers’ inadequate proposal to address the pay gap between more and less senior workers. In the mid-1990s the ILA accepted a two-tier wage system that put newer workers far below industry veterans with no pathway to top pay, currently $31 an hour.

Reform strongholds—Baltimore, Charleston, South Carolina, Northern New Jersey, and Mobile, Alabama—voted the deal down by healthy margins.

“It’s definitely a new day in the ILA,” Riley said. “We’re raising expectations from the industry, and we’re making a more informed, more inquisitive membership. That in itself makes us a better union.”

LWC activists hoped to build on their earlier success turning back concessions. In August the LWC exposed a secret deal between ILA President Richard Hughes and employers that would have erased a raise scheduled for October 1. The LWC said the move would have cost ILA members more than $40 million.

Fifty-five picketing LWC members shut down an ILA executive board meeting August 26 in Washington, D.C., and a week later the LWC spearheaded rejection of the givebacks by the union’s 200-member rank-and-file bargaining committee. ILA leadership brought back an improved deal, but activists said it still didn’t address members’ key issues, including introduction of new technology on the docks and stronger health and safety provisions.

WHAT’S THE RUSH?

Mike D. Payne, president of ILA Local 1526 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, argued that negotiating in a faltering economy put the union at a disadvantage. “We had until next year before our contract expires,” Payne said. “What’s the rush?”

The LWC succeeded in getting a long-awaited “wage bridge” to connect top and bottom earners in the new contract. But many LWC members believe the proposal—which requires new members to work at least 700 hours a year for nine years to arrive at top pay—falls short.

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“These companies have saved millions, probably billions, of dollars because of the tier program,” said Mark Bass, president of Local 1410 in Mobile, Alabama. “It’s time for individuals to progress and make it to the top tier.”

Bass should know: after a container operation opened in Mobile last year, the operator used the contract’s rules to push pay for 80 percent of Local 1410 members down to the second tier. “I had guys who went $13 an hour backwards with no warning,” Bass says.

SHELL GAME

LWC activists also criticized other aspects of the economic package, including cuts in contributions to the union’s health care and container royalty funds by as much as $50 million a year. The royalty fund was originally negotiated in 1960 to compensate dockers when the introduction of standardized containers cut jobs and hours.

The deal lifts a cap on royalty payments, which could put millions into workers’ pockets—and bolster dwindling union coffers—if shipping traffic returns to pre-recession levels.

According to LWC co-chair Tony Perlstein, the deal essentially increases wages at the expense of the union’s health care funds and jeopardizes local benefits, including pensions. “It’s a shell game,” he said.

According to Perlstein, the contract extension also funds improvements by giving employers a one-time contribution holiday that would cost members another $57 million.

“So we get our October raise, but we have to pay for it,” Perlstein said. “They’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

Payne believes the leadership’s strong support for the agreement was linked to proposed changes in the royalty funds that benefit union tops. “Our union’s treasury has really suffered because of tiered wages, as well as the big salaries they’re paying top officers,” he said.

LWC members flooded the ports with flyers and “vote no” stickers, and mailed a contract fact sheet to all 12,000 members. Activists traveled port to port to discuss the contract with other members, while International officers also clocked miles promoting ratification.

“It’s truly sad that more effort was spent selling the members the contract than negotiating it,” Payne said.