Labor's muscle on Pacific docks

Few unions can cause this kind of a ruckus anymore.

Forty years ago, it was the steelworkers, roiling President Kennedy and national inflation when they called for a rise in steel prices. At the turn of the century, it was a coal miners' strike, testing President Theodore Roosevelt's mettle and threatening Americans' ability to heat their homes.

Now, it is a lockout at West Coast ports that would seem to hold the holiday season hostage, with millions of Christmas toys and televisions from Asia trapped on a conga line of ships left bobbing in untended harbors.

By one estimate, the shutdown, which began Sunday afternoon and centers on faltering labor negotiations, is costing the US $1 billion a day. It is, in many ways, a throwback to a different era – to a time before unions were so picked at that they lost their ability to shake the nation.

For the moment, many companies are coping. Anticipating the problems months ago, they took steps to get their Christmas merchandise from Asia earlier. But prolonged labor strife, experts say, could imperil any national economic recovery, and – as in the past – sweep a reluctant president into the froth of bare-knuckle union politics.

"The key questions are how long will it last and whether the government will intervene," says Bruce Steinberg, chief economist for Merrill Lynch & Co. "I don't think the government will let the economy be held hostage by some longshoremen."

It would not be the first time. Indeed, over 70 years, the workers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) have created what some observers call the most powerful union in the United States.

In 1934, under the hawk-nosed labor activist Harry Bridges, the issue was 10 cents more an hour in wages and the right for the union to send who it wanted to each job – rather than depending on corrupt foremen, who often chose workers based on their bribes. He incapacitated the entire West Coast with a strike from San Diego to Seattle, and won his concessions after San Francisco police killed two protesters and injured 100 others in what longshoremen now call "Bloody Tuesday."

At issue today is technology. As shipping, like other industries, becomes increasingly computerized, the ILWU wants to make sure that the people who run this technology are unionized. The terminal operators and shipping lines that make up the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) have so far not agreed.

Moreover, the companies say that workers, who have been without a labor contract since July 2, have begun to protest by slowing down, strictly adhering to break times, and not accepting overtime. This amounts to a paid strike, the PMA has said, and it shut down ports Sunday until a new labor agreement is reached.

Page: 1 | 2