WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Bush Administration’s decision to move toward issuing an unprecedented Taft-Hartley injunction in the West Coast port lockout by appointing a board of inquiry preempts the collective bargaining process and undermines the right of workers with union representation to negotiate on an equal footing with their employers.
In threatening a Taft-Hartley injunction and the use of the National Guard on the ports months ago, the Administration tainted the water of negotiations from the beginning, giving the employers no incentive to engage in good faith bargaining. This is the first time ever that the Taft-Hartley process has been used in a lockout, and the first time it has been used at all since 1978.
When the Board of Inquiry meets, its report should honestly reflect that the employer has dragged its feet in negotiations, locked the workers out, refused to meet the union half way and shut down the nation’s ports. In doing so, the employer is trying to rob the workers of their freedom to have a union.
The dockworkers want the docks open and have repeatedly offered to work — including last night, when the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) agreed to a federal mediator’s proposal that they work under the old contract for seven days assuming the employers’ group – – the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) — would take the padlocks off the port gates. The agreement would be renewed on a rolling basis as mediation continued. But the employer group refused to accept this compromise — a compromise that would have opened the ports and gotten the nation’s cargo unloaded without the burden of a Taft-Hartley injunction.
The ILWU believes that the two parties’ issues are bridgeable. But the parties have only been in mediation four days — too short a period for the process to work.
In fact, the PMA and the ILWU had come to an agreement on technology and jobs. The PMA reneged on that agreement this weekend. And the PMA’s last offer gutted the dockworkers’ arbitration and grievance procedure.
The basic issue at the table is neither wages nor benefits. In agreeing to new productivity-increasing technology, the ILWU has asked that any new jobs that are created have the protection of a union collective bargaining agreement so that port jobs will continue to be good jobs in the future – – jobs where the workers have a voice on the job through their union. But the PMA has steadfastly refused.
And dockworkers need a voice at work. Five workers have been killed on the docks in just seven months – – making the ports second only to mines as the most dangerous place to work. When workers go into a dangerous situation, they need to have the freedom to speak up for their rights, and not be pushed to work in unsafe conditions to meet companies’ “just in time” demands.
The Bush Administration’s decision to position itself as a player in these negotiations early in the process sends a message to other American employers — and that message is, “Why negotiate and let the natural market forces work at the table if the federal government will step in?” This Administration has routinely over-used its power to force federal intervention — first in the airline industry and then in railroads — and now in the private sector. Bush is setting a new precedent against workers’ rights.
These dock workers want to work — and they’ve offered to work. The PMA should take the padlocks off the gates and let the workers unload those ships. And the Bush Administration should stop undermining workers’ unions by continuously weighting the scales heavily in the employers’ favor.