>Regarding mechanization, the rise of the farm workers union caused
>the Univ. of
>Calif., Davis to invent the mechanical tomato picker and the hard tomato.
>--
>Michael Perelman
Exactly. Weak & cheap labor is a recipe for technological stagnation
& even deindustrialization, whereas strong & costly labor pushes
capitalists to innovate, so they can beat back unions. Here's how it
happened on the waterfront:
***** The New Union
In 1933 the economic depression that started in 1929 hit the nation
full-force. West Coast longshoremen, who had long suffered their own
special kind of depression through chronic job insecurity, now
experienced even deeper hardship. Genuine union organization became a
matter of survival. The longshoremen once again applied for and
obtained a charter from the ILA - but this time they established
their organization as a single unit on a coastwise and industry-wide
basis, thus avoiding the mistakes of the past.
Their demands were simple: a union-controlled hiring hall that would
end all forms of discrimination and favoritism in hiring and equalize
work opportunities; a coastwise contract, with all workers on the
Pacific Coast receiving the same basic wages and working under the
same protected hours and conditions; and a six-hour work day with a
fair hourly wage.
The shipowners consistently refused each demand, determined to divide
and destroy the unions in each port. The members of both longshore
and seafaring unions voted to strike in May 1934. In response, the
employers mobilized private industry, state and local governments,
and police agencies to smash the unions and their picket lines.
The ranks held firm throughout the historic strike. They held up
against unprovoked police violence, and withstood attempts by the ILA
national leaders to cave in to employer demands for a return to
business as usual. They elected new regional leaders to push the
strike forward in defiance of both the employers and the ILA
officials. Prominent among the new faces was a San Francisco
longshoreman named Harry Bridges, who was later elected president of
the ILA's Pacific Coast District and then president of the ILWU.
In July of 1934, when it was clear the longshoremen and their
seafaring allies were not going to give up their struggle for justice
on the waterfront, the employers decided to open the struck piers
using guns, goon squads, tear gas, and the National Guard. They
provoked pitched battles in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and San
Pedro. Hundreds of strikers - and bystanders - were arrested and
injured. On July 5, know ever after as Bloody Thursday, two workers
were shot and killed. A total of six workers were shot or beaten to
death on the West Coast by police or company goons during the course
of the strike.
Rather than breaking the strike, these terrible events galvanized
public support, and prompted the unions of San Francisco to declare a
brief but historic General Strike to support the longshore and
maritime unions and protest strikebreaking by employers and police.
The most conservative leaders of the San Francisco labor movement
headed the General Strike, and called it off July 16 after just four
days. Still, business and government now knew the maritime strikers
had the overwhelming support of the Bay Area's rank and file trade
unionists.
Overseas support for the strikers also helped impress the employers
with the impossibility of beating the strike with scab longshoremen
and scab crews. And for the first time, most minority workers refused
to scab, thanks to the longshoremen's developing policy against
racial discrimination. After the federal government intervened, the
union agreed to arbitrate all issues - and won, in principle, each of
its major demands.
The union made great organizing gains as the result of the
opportunity it gave to the average worker to unite and fight. It
sparked the creation of new unions in every industry up and down the
Pacific Coast, and the formation of the first multi-employer
collective bargaining unit covering an entire industry.
The unity between longshoremen and seafarers also led to the
formation of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific, composed of a
majority of the waterfront and seagoing unions. Alarmed by the
workers' growing solidarity, the shipowners in 1936 sought a test of
strength over the unions' gains of 1934. For the first time in the
history of any American waterfront the struggle was carried out
without a single incident of violence or attempt by the employers to
use strikebreakers. The result was a large measure of gains for the
seamen, gains which the longshoremen had already won in 1934,
including a union-controlled hiring hall. Coast unionism was secure
and ready to expand.
The success of the new union came from its solidarity and from its
complete democracy. Members stood together and sacrificed together,
and they controlled every aspect of the union's life. Self-imposed
discipline came from membership participation in every decision, with
a shared understanding of every issue.
The Pacific Coast District of the ILA, soon to become the ILWU, also
led the campaign for industrial unionism, which would unite all the
workers in an industry in one strong union. Craft unionism, practiced
by most unions in the American Federation of Labor at that time,
divided workers in an industry according to the type of work they
did. The AFL, once an aid to the union's growth, became an obstacle
by opposing the new industrial unionism taking hold in its ranks as
the Committee for the Industrial Organization, spearheaded by the
United Mine Workers' John L. Lewis.
The traditional AFL leadership finally expelled the CIO unions from
the Federation. Pressures mounted on the West Coast longshore workers
- and their new affiliates in warehousing - to join the CIO. The
organizing successes of the Pacific Coast District thrust the new
union into a leadership role in the campaign for industrial unionism.
The leadership of the Pacific Coast District moved slowly, insisting
on full discussion up and down the coast and, ultimately, on a secret
referendum ballot by the entire membership. By the time the vote was
taken in late summer, 1937, the AFL and ILA had started assigning the
newly organized warehouse workers to other AFL unions, imposed a dues
assessment to finance the fight against the CIO, and reaffirmed
conservative AFL positions on social programs - including opposition
to federal unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and minimum wage
laws. Still the Pacific Coast District tried to resolve their
differences without a formal split, and sought an ILA-wide referendum
on the issues. But the ILA leadership refused, so the Pacific Coast
District held its own referendum. The members voted overwhelmingly to
disaffiliate from the ILA - and the ILWU was born.
Almost immediately, the ILWU membership vote to affiliate with the
new CIO, whose program of industrial unionism, opposition to
discrimination and genuine non-partisan political action on behalf of
working people exactly matched their own.
But the vote for disaffiliation was not unanimous, and three
Northwest locals remained with the ILA and the AFL for many years. In
Tacoma, Washington, for example, longshoremen did not vote to become
ILWU Local 23 until 1958, when shrinking work opportunity motivated
them to affiliate so they could travel to nearby ILWU ports for
additional work. Their 20 years of steadfast independence arose from
many factors, including strong traditions of regional independence
and close cooperation with many area AFL unions. They had also
maintained strong internal discipline over the years, and had prided
themselves on attracting and keeping work in the port by emphasizing
productivity on the job. Many union longshoremen therefore felt they
could take care of themselves - as they had after the setbacks of
1919 - without deferring to the San Francisco-based leadership of the
new union or the CIO. The last Pacific Coast outpost of the ILA,
Grainliners' Local 1892 near Longview, Washington, did not vote to
join the ILWU's Local 21 until 1981.
Meanwhile, the ILWU's brand of rank-and-file unionism spread under
the banner of the CIO, paying off in more gains and greater security
for the members of the ILWU and for all American workers. In the
decade between 1938 and 1948, the ILWU used its power to help build
new CIO unions in processing, manufacturing, service and
entertainment industries located far from its waterfront and
warehouse bases.
The organizing principles were simple. First, initiate new
organization where the local union was willing to participate fully
in the campaign. This meant that the local's members and officers
took on many of the actual organizing tasks, such as contacting
unorganized workers. The International then mobilized financial and
staff resources to support the local's effort. Typical organizing
target were non-union businesses that competed with unionized
enterprises.
The second basic principle of successful ILWU organizing was to
consolidate the union's organization throughout an area, amalgamating
small locals into coordinated larger locals, as happened, for
example, in Hawaii, Alaska, and Northern California. This proved more
efficient administratively, and resulted in greater solidarity among
the membership - and greater participation by rank-and-file members
in organizing.
But the union's achievements were challenged soon after World War II.
Flush with wartime profits, the maritime employers resolved to roll
back the economic and social gains won by organized labor.
Anticipating an anti-labor labor drive, the ILWU played a leading
role in forming the Committee for Maritime Unity (CMU) in 1946. The
successor to the Maritime Federation and the Pacific, the CMU
included the ILWU and maritime unions on both coasts.
When the CMU opened unprecedented national negotiations in
Washington, D.C. on May 30, 1946, a national railroad strike had just
been broken. President Truman had ordered the Army to take over the
railroads and the workers were forced to abandon their strike under
threat of being drafted into the Army. This new strikebreaking tactic
worked so perfectly that Truman decided to use it against the
maritime workers. He announced that in the event the CMU struck June
15, as scheduled, the Navy would man the ships and the Army would
load them.
The CMU immediately called on its friends and allies in foreign
countries to support the American workers in what promised to be a
struggle between labor and the armed might of the government. Within
hours the telegrams pledging support began to stream in from maritime
unions all over the world: New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, France,
England, Poland, Japan, the Scandinavian countries, and others. In
each instance the workers abroad warned that any ships loaded by the
Army and manned by the Navy to break the CMU strike would be declared
scab ships and tied up the instant they entered foreign ports.
President Truman and his advisors smashed the railroad strike, but
they couldn't get the U.S. Army and Navy to handle ships in foreign
ports. The admirals, the generals, and the President beat a hasty
retreat. The CMU negotiating committee, with ILWU president Harry
Bridges as spokesman, achieved a great victory for maritime workers
all over the country as wages and benefits were improved, and the
union hiring hall was again preserved.
Another test of longshore strength came in 1948 when the heavy
players in the Waterfront Employers Association decided the time had
come to pressure President Truman to use the new Taft-Hartley law to
deprive the ILWU of all of its gains. An anti-labor Congress passed
Taft-Hartley, also known as the Labor-Management Relations Act, over
President Truman's veto in 1947. The act outlawed the hiring hall,
preferential hiring for union members, secondary boycotts, and
strikes over jurisdictional issues, knocking down may of the building
blocks for union strength. It also eroded the right to strike by
giving the NLRB power to issue injunctions against boycotts and
strikes it deemed illegal, and allowing the President to impose an 80
day "cooling-off" period during strikes deemed harmful to the
"national interest." In another inroad on workers' rights and
liberties, the Act required elected union leaders to sign affidavits
stating they were not Communists before they could hold office (a
provision the ILWU later successfully challenged in court).
Armed with these federal statues, the employers entered contract
talks demanding that the ILWU give up the hiring hall on the grounds
that it was "illegal." The union countered with a demand to continue
the hall, as well as a series of contract changes, including higher
wages, shorter hours, revised vacation rules and improved safety
conditions.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided to try out another
part of the Taft-Hartley law for the first time, and force the
workers to vote on the employers' "last offer."
The ILWU's Coast Longshore Caucus recommended that the rank and file
boycott the NLRB poll to protest government restrictions on the
union's bargaining power. The result of the vote, as certified by the
NLRB after three days of attempted polling, was an unprecedented show
of union strength and solidarity: of the 26,965 employees eligible to
vote, each and every one heeded the union's call to boycott and not
one ballot was cast.
The employers withdrew all their previous offers and announced there
was really but one issue in the strike: "Communist leadership." The
union refused to be divided by this issue, and the strike began on
September 2.
Then the break came. Leadership was changed, but not as demanded by
the shipowners. The longshoremen stood by their leaders to a man -
the shipowners changed theirs. They reorganized, called the union
back to the bargaining table and announced, "Gentlemen, there is a
new a look!"
And there was a "New Look." Gone were the union-busters and
red-baiters on the employer side of the table, and after 95 days on
the bricks one of the finest trade union agreements ever made was
negotiated in the new atmosphere. The hiring hall continued as it
was; wages were increased, union security was reaffirmed and
improvement were made in the hours and vacation provisions. Neither
Taft-Hartley nor the NLRB was any more successful than the federal
government's threats to use the Army and Navy to break the union.
The next turning point in the history of the Longshore Division came
in the late 1950s as the workers confronted technological change on
the waterfront - the relentless introduction of machinery by the
employers to increase productivity and profits. After several years
of debates in coastwise caucuses, special conferences, and membership
meetings, the rank and file ratified the historic - and controversial
- Modernization and Mechanization Agreement of 1960 (M&M).
By 1959 the shipping industry was confronting difficult operational
problems. Post-war construction costs skyrocketed the investment
needed to build and maintain ships. The price of fuel, wharfage fees,
and wages for seafaring personnel all moved up with the times.
The only way to offset these rising costs was to speed cargo handling
and ship turnaround time. Speedier loading and discharge not only
improves the ship's turnaround time, it also increases the number of
trips the vessel can make each year. Increased earnings resulting
from the introduction of new machinery and new methods of cargo
handling could well enable the industry to remain profitable.
Meanwhile, the union concluded that new methods and machines would be
introduced no matter how great members' resistance to change. As
employers had the contractual right to make changes in operations,
the best the union could hope for was to retain the old rules
governing size of gangs, methods of cargo handling and related
contract guarantees, as long as possible. New ideas for cargo
handling, revolutionary ship design, the introduction of strapped
loads, large-scale use of containers, and numerous other devices
would sooner or later bypass the existing rules. Proposed legislation
would also outlaw many of the guarantees and safeguards afforded by
the old contract, leaving the workers with no new forms of security
or protection in exchange.
Clearly the time had come to reexamine labor relations in the light
of the mechanization and modernization of West Coast longshoring. The
union and the employers decided they were better off tackling the
issues as a whole, and agreed the following principles would shape
the 1960 contract: the shipowners and stevedoring contractors were
freed from restrictions on the introduction of labor-saving devices,
relieved of the use of unnecessary workers, and assured of the
elimination of work practices which impeded the efficient flow of
cargo.
The union made these guarantees to industry in exchange for an
unprecedented series of benefits for the workers, designed to protect
them against the negative impact of machines on their daily work and
job security. The agreement provided that:
1. The current workforce would not be laid off. If the unhindered
introduction of new machinery and methods of work resulted in the
loss of work opportunity so that the work force had to be reduced, it
would shrink from the top, with an innovative voluntary early
retirement program instead of layoffs. If employers later needed to
cut the workforce further, they could invoke a compulsory retirement
provision with a higher pension benefit.
2. Increased profits would be shared with the workers in the form of
increased wages and benefits.
3. Machines and labor-saving devices would be introduced wherever
possible to lighten the burden of hard and hazardous work.
During longshore bargaining in 1966, the principle of M&M were
extended under union pressure to "preserve the present registered
force of longshoremen as the basic work force in the industry, and to
share with that work force a portion of the net labor cost savings to
be effected by the introduction of mechanical innovations, removal of
contractual restrictions, or any other means." Significantly, these
innovations were to implemented without causing a speedup for the
individual worker, indiscriminate layoffs, or a violation of safety
codes or rules.
Problems arose, of course, in the implementation and interpretation
of the two five-year contracts negotiated to bring the new program to
life in a period of stable labor relations. Rank and file support for
M&M had never been unanimous, and growing concerns about threats to
ILWU jurisdiction, to the equalization of earnings, and to work
opportunity gave rise to a new militancy among the younger generation
of longshore workers in 1971.
Contract negotiations in 1971 centered on the consequences of
containerization. When talks reached an impasse over union
jurisdiction, wage parity and work rules, the resulting strike vote
was a resounding 96.4 percent "yes" - a measure of the solidarity
that sustained the longest coastwise longshore strike in U.S. history.
For many members, especially in San Francisco's Local 10, the central
issue was whether or not the employers would be able to redefine work
rules and job categories to create a new class of workers for
container operations, 'steady men' who would report to the same
company every day instead of going to the hiring hall for jobs.
After 134 days on strike, the members accepted a new agreement by a
71 percent "yes" vote. The settlement contained some improved
language on container jurisdiction, new dental benefits, the first
five paid no-work holidays, and a new "Pay Guarantee Plan" that made
significant steps towards establishing a guaranteed annual income for
registered longshoremen whose work opportunity declined due to
mechanization and other economic factors.
But the settlement terms were not far different from the employers'
last proposal before the strike started. And it began the long
process that transformed longshore work along the entire coast,
especially in Southern California, by the spread of "steady"
equipment operators who rarely went to the union hall for their job
assignments.
The 1971 strike also brought the ILWU face to face with the combined
effect of technological innovations and the integration of
international economies. Containerization enabled employers to avoid
struck ports by offloading U.S. cargo through Canadian and Mexican
ports and trucking it into the country.
Increased solidarity among the workers somewhat offset this
advantage. ILWU and Teamster members halted movement of diverted
cargo to and from the Mexican port of Ensenada by U.S. drivers (both
unions recognized the enormous legal and financial pressures placed
on Mexican nationals by their own government and employers to drive
diverted cargo across the border, and did not blockade those
vehicles).
To the north, the ILWU Canadian Area voted not to handle diverted
U.S. cargo, despite threats of heavy fines and imprisonment. They
soon called off this boycott, however, to avoid a potentially fatal
showdown with the Canadian government after British Columbia court
rulings against the union. Ultimately the Canadian ILWU escaped
penalties, because the court ruled the union boycott was enacted in
good faith to prevent union members from being forced to work as
strikebreakers - and because the longshore workers in Vancouver had
handled Canadian cargo as needed.
Since the 1971 strike, the Longshore Division has steadily defended
and organized its jurisdiction. Employers provoked several skirmishes
over new longshore operations, usually by attempting to whittle away
at existing ILWU jurisdiction. The union has also had to protect its
jurisdiction in the face of constant technological change in the
computerized era of intermodal transportation.
The ILWU responded to these threats with organizing campaigns to
bring all unorganized waterfront workers into the union, including
office clerical workers employed by shipping and stevedoring
companies, workers at new intermodal rail yards, and mechanics
engaged in the maintenance and repair of containers and related
cargo-handling equipment.
In the 1970s, for example, newly organized office workers at
Zim-American Israeli Shipping and Matson Navigation joined clerical
units in either Ship Clerks Local 63 in Southern California, or Local
34 in the San Francisco Bay Area, and yard workers at Southern
Pacific's Intermodal Containers Transfer Facility (ICTF) voted in
1987 to join the new Allied Division of Southern California's
Longshore Local 13.
And in 1995, a major organizing drive among vessel planners - who
determine the load, weight, and balance of a ship's cargo - was
initiated in Southern California by Local 63's office clericals and
marine clerks units, with longshore support from Local 13. By the end
of the 1996, the successful drive - strengthened by new
jurisdictional language in the 1996 longshore contract settlement -
expanded northward to planners in Northern California, Tacoma, and
Seattle.
These organizing successes did not come easily, and many employers
have not only resisted unionization, but have also sought to bypass
or curtail traditional ILWU jurisdiction on the waterfront. When this
has happened, the entire Longshore Division, along with the Warehouse
Division, mobilized to defend its jurisdiction and right to organize.
The number of these struggles increased in the late 1980s, as
waterfront employers appeared emboldened by the anti-labor climate in
the nation's capital.
More than 12,000 trade unionist joined the demonstration. For the
next four years the ILWU worked closely with organized labor and
environmental groups to hold USS-POSCO (a joint venture between U.S.
Steel Corporation and POSCO, a Korean conglomerate) accountable for
its anti-union policies and the threat its Pittsburg facility posed
to environmental safety in the region. In 1992 the ILWU signed an
agreement with USS-POSCO ending the dispute. The pact fell short of
total victory, but it did protect the ILWU's jurisdiction should the
facility be used by other companies, and provided for significant
fines should USS-POSCO pollute the environment. Perhaps just as
important, the four-year campaign brought the environmental and labor
movements closer together.
Between 1987 and 1989 ILWU members in the Northwest defended
longshore jurisdiction against attempts by the giant ITT-Rayonnier
corporation to use non-union operations to barge and ship logs for
export. Union members eventually shut down all Washington and Oregon
ports to participate in a 1989 meeting and demonstration against
Rayonnier - and assured future operations would be handled by ILWU
labor.
In 1989 the ILWU was also able to win an important fight against
foreign seamen doing ILWU longshore work when the union's attorneys
successfully intervened against Canadian shipowners who tried to use
crew members to operate cranes in log loading operations while in
Northwest U.S. ports.
In 1993 the entire ILWU was forced to fight a major battle with
Peavey, a ConAgra subsidiary, when Locals 21 and 40 tackled the grain
giant at its grain elevator in Kalama, Washington. The IWLU gained
community support - and government attention - when it exposed
Peavey's illegal practice of soaking grain, which increased its
weight and thereby brought a higher price for the cargo. The union
also mobilized international support, most successfully in Japan,
against the company's proposed cuts in manning levels and plans to
impose other substandard conditions. The company was forced to
compromise on its contract proposals, and also ended up paying a
major fine in 1997 for its grain-soaking practices.
While there have also been setbacks, times when the combined power of
the rank and file could not prevail against the employer - most
notable in the bitter and sometimes bloody fight from 1992-1995 to
maintain ILWU jurisdiction at Southern Pacific's Intermodal Container
Transfer Facility in Southern California, -- the union became even
more determined to protect its jurisdiction.
This determination backed up by coastwise unity, was in large part
reponsible for the major gains achieved in the 1996 Pacific Coast
Longshore contract. Not only did the contract clarify and nail down
ILWU jurisdiction over on-dock intermodal rail yards, it also forced
employer acceptance of ILWU jurisdiction over intra-port drayage of
containers, container maintenance and repair operations, and vessel
planning. Just as important, the longshore membership took on and
eliminated the employers' "side deals" with individual skilled
equipment and crane operators - the divisive practice whereby an
employer paid bonuses to some workers to work steady for that
employer.
© ILWU 1997
<http://home.earthlink.net/~chwbiii/newunion.htm> *****
The experiences of sharecroppers, tomato pickers, & longshoremen show
that modernization & mechanization under capitalism are not just
driven by inter-capitalist market competition but motored by militant
class struggles. Only by dooming labor to semi-permanent
powerlessness can you stop innovation under capitalism even
temporarily (e.g., trapping laborers in the hacienda system).
Innovations under capitalism, however, are a one-sided affair,
focusing on productivity improvement at all cost. Quantity (more
tomatoes, longer-lasting tomatoes) at the expense of quality (tastier
tomatoes). The trick is to make use of labor-saving technology
created by capitalism selectively & work on the improvement of
quality (of goods & lives) under socialism.
Yoshie
