The president uses a 1947 anti- labor law against West Coast longshore workers fighting to preserve hard-won jobs and benefits

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

By intervening in a West Coast labor dispute, the Bush administration is supporting corporate plans to break the power of the progressive longshore workers union.

President George W. Bush invoked the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act in October to end a labor lockout by management at 29 ports on the West Coast.

The court injunction obtained by the administration in October imposed an 80-day "cooling off" period, supposedly to allow the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) employers' group to negotiate a new contract.

But the result might be to force a raw deal down the throats of the 10,500 dock workers.

"This is the first time in the history of the United States that a president has let an employer lock out workers to undermine the workers' union—creating a phony crisis—and then reward the employer with government intervention," said Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer. "It is a tragedy with historic ramifications."

The seldom-implemented cooling-off provision was intended to be used when a strike creates a national emergency. But this time, the lockout gave the administration an excuse to intervene for management in a bitter contract dispute.

In the fall, contract talks broke off over the employers' proposal to introduce labor-saving technology and contract out work to non-union workers.

Phony crisis

The PMA shut down the ports after claiming that the union workers were staging a slowdown—a charge denied by the union.

The lockout caused the "phony crisis" Mr. Trumka referred to: With businesses dependent on the ports losing an estimated $1 billion a day, corporate lobbyists pressed on the administration to intervene.

Businesses such as The Gap, Best Buy, Talbots, Wal-Mart and Target Stores pushed for the injunction because they feared Christmas sales would be hurt by the labor dispute.

On Oct. 8, just seven hours before seeking the court order to open the ports, the Bush administration met with lobbyists representing 50 companies and interest groups to discuss the Taft-Hartley Act.

Four days earlier, at a meeting the National Association of Manufacturers requested, a White House official met with representatives of 25 companies who spoke ominously about how the continuation of the lockout would damage the economy.

Months before that, employer groups had begun lobbying the administration to undercut the power of the ILWU, whose workers are strategically located to disrupt international trade. A coalition of shipping companies and corporations like Wal-Mart, 3M and Toyota urged the administration to play hardball with the union. The administration responded with a task force, which explored:

Military threat

Before Bush sought the injunction, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao warned the union that the administration was prepared to prevent a strike. And the administration also indicated its willingness to use federal troops to keep the ports open.

The ILWU contract expired in July. The essence of the dispute is over the employers' desire to introduce new technologies, such as electronic cargo-tracking and optical scanners to register the goods that truck drivers bring into the ports.

The ILWU is willing to adopt the new technology as long as the jobs of 600 clerical workers are protected and any new workers are represented by the union.

For the last 40 years, the union has accepted new labor-saving technology and taken in all new types of workers. In the 1960s, the ILWU agreed to permit the introduction of labor-saving container shipping technology.

That led to a decline in the number of longshore workers from 100,000 to somewhat over 10,000 a day. The union members, whose current pay ranges from $80,000 to $150,000, shared in the productivity gains.
But this time, management rejected union jurisdiction for the new workers, posing the threat of eliminating the union as new skills replace old.

The Bush administration aims to break a union that has raised exploited, impoverished "wharf rats" into proud middle-class workers with good jobs and benefits. But the ILWU's history of fighting back hard and well tells us the last chapter in this struggle has not been written.