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The Real Lockout Story

Dockworkers die during company speed-ups

From Washington Jobs with Justice

Whipped up by "strike hysteria," shipping on the West Coast brokerecords this summer as major corporations stockpiled importedproducts. As a result, the major shipping companies imposed a brutalwork speed-up that put many dockworkers in danger but generated hugecompany profits. Five Longshore union members died in separateincidents as a result of this speed-up. While bargaining a newcontract, union leaders called for a "work safely" campaign to insurethat proper training and protection of health and life came beforeprofits. The big shipping companies then retaliated against thedockworkers by locking out all Longshore workers in every port on theWest Coast.

The shipping companies have tried every means to use the federalgovernment to keep Longshore workers from negotiating a fair unioncontract. First, they called for Bush to bring in the US military toreplace dockworkers on the job. Then, shipping companies and otherbusinesses called on Bush to invoke the rarely used Taft-Hartley Actto save face for an ineffective lock-out and force Longshore workersback to dangerous speed-up rates at work. The companies are especiallydesperate to force speed-up work as the holiday season approaches.

In the last six months there have been five fatalities of ILWUworkers, each more horrific than the last. (1) On September 3 Local26 watchman Rudy Acosta was run over and killed by a top handler atthe Pacific Container Terminal operated by SSA in Long Beach. (2) OnJuly 23 Richie Lopez, Jr., Local 46 in Port Hueneme, was run over by aheavy forklift. (3) On June 1, Local 14 member Dick Peters waschecking the hatches of a ship being loaded in the Port of Eureka.Apparently the ship-board gantry crane swung and crushed Petersagainst the ship itself. (4) On March 15, Mario Gonzalez, Local 26,was operating a huge mill that shreds cars into scrap metal at HugoNeu-Prolers' facility at the Port of Los Angeles. The machine jammedand Gonzalez went in to fix it. But the hydraulic-powered, several-tondoor closed on his chest, killing him. (5) On March 14 foreman JohnProhoroff, Local 94, was routinely preparing a ship to be worked atSSA's Long Beach terminal. The line on one of the ship's cranes broke,dropping a 3,000-pound metal ring 30 feet and hitting him. He wasrushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

"PMA's constant push for more productivity is making a bad problemeven worse," said ILWU International President Jim Spinosa. "The docksare already dangerously congested, but during these negotiationsseveral terminal operators tried to raise their posted speed limitsfrom 10 or 15 miles an hour to 25. But even with safe limits posted,none of the equipment we are given to drive have speedometers.Accidents occur all too often and that is why one of the demands wehave on the table in these negotiations is to have speedometers put inall the power industrial trucks on the docks."

For more info, go to: www.ilwu.org. Also visit WashingtonState Jobs with Justice, PO Box 9662, Seattle, WA 98109-0662;206-441-4969; wsjwj@igc.org;