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Issue No. 148 | 16 August 2002 |
Peak Performance
Interview: Labor Law Unions: Critical Conditions Bad Boss: Shifting The Load History: Peeking Out Safety: Flying High Corporate: Salaries High, Performance Low International: War on the US Wharves Review: And the Signs Said... Poetry: Tony Don't Preach Satire: Latham Dumps Rodney Rude as Speech Writer
Qantas Dressed Down Over Uniform Backflip Virgin Threatens Delegate Over Net Use Email Protection Hits Firewall Victorian System Needs Reform: AIRC Qld Public Sector Battle Heats Up Community Workers Eye Canberra Show Down Lift Techs Face Redundancy Lock Out Council Workers Win Picnic Day Fight School Support Staff Demand Recongition Black Chicks Talk At Refuge Fundraiser Colombian Left MP Applying For Asylum
Politics The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Human Rights
Another Capitalist Party? Justice For All? Kill the Photos! Right Wing Lackies
Labor Council of NSW |
International War on the US WharvesBy Andrew Casey
" We're hoping there rallies send a very strong message to the Bush administration to keep its nose out of our negotiations," Jack Heyman from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in San Fransisco told local media. Along with the military threats, a Bush administration task force is reported to be considering declaring a national economic emergency, which would delay any possible strike by 80 days or introducing federal legislation stripping the ILWU dockworkers of their collective bargaining rights. At the heart of this dispute are issues very similar to the ones fought over in Australia by the MUA in their War on the Wharves a few years back. Pacific port bosses' want to slash workers' health benefits and introduce new technology aimed at outsourcing union jobs rather than train union workers to operate the new technology as has been the practice in previous contracts. Big Business Eggs on George Bush The big retail chains and auto importers - like Wal-Mart, Gap, Mattel, Target Stores, Toyota and Yamaha - who are all highly dependent on the Pacific ports to import into the USA their cheap globalised products have set up a lobby group - the West Coast Waterfront Coalition - to pressure the White House to act against the ILWU - and to bring in the troops if necessary. In the USA - as in Australia - the ILWU is seen as a key militant union hated by these global corporations. Backed by capital the Bush Administration would dearly like to break this union, just as John Howard wanted to break the MUA. And ordinary unionists throughout America know that if they can break the ILWU - then they can break any other workers' organisation. The Aussie Unionist who set up the ILWU Relations between Australian port workers and the US dockworkers are traditionally very close - not least because the traditional militancy and power of the ILWU was established by an Australian unionist - Harry Bridges - who today is considered an icon of the American union movement. Contract negotiations between the ILWU and the employers resumed this week after nearly three weeks of refusal to talk and public slanging matches. The ILWU contract for some 16000 members expired July 1. During the month of media slanging matches news reports started leaking Bush Administration plans to use troops to keep West Coast ports open in the event of a strike or lockout by management.. Steve Stallone, ILWU communications director, confirmed the media reports when he said that in a meeting with union negotiators, a US Labor Department lawyer "threatened to bring in the National Guard to militarily take over the ports."
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