Equal Pay, Benefits and Union Rights for All Longshoremen!

https://iclfi.org/pubs/wv/2024-ilwu/tiers

The “Committee to End Tier Segregation in the ILWU” in the union’s Bay Area Local 10 has taken up the fight to end the division of the workforce into A, B and casual workers. For decades, these divisions have been eroding the ILWU’s collective strength and its members’ consciousness, as the different tiers are pitted against one another in a dog-eat-dog struggle to get, or stay, ahead. The casuals struggle to get any work at all—at lower wages, no benefits and no union membership. If they pick up enough hours, which often takes years, they can advance to B-man status, largely working the most backbreaking jobs at less pay and still no union membership. If B-men put in enough time, they can become A-men, often working around the clock and destroying their bodies driving the heavy equipment to make up for the time they were on the bottom rungs of the tier ladder.

The Committee to End Tier Segregation is fighting for full medical benefits, equal pay for equal work and full union membership for all longshore workers. At Local 10’s May meeting, members voted to send a resolution in line with this perspective to the ILWU Longshore Caucus. Put forward by local executive board member and Committee founder Emily Turnbull, it demanded that all casuals get the same pay as A-men for the same work, with full contractual medical coverage as well as an intensive two-week training and safety program paid for by the PMA bosses and controlled by the union. This wouldn’t end the casuals tier, but it would significantly improve their conditions. The Longshore Caucus did not take up this resolution but referred it to a Caucus meeting for the 2028 round of contract negotiations.

The purpose of trade unions isn’t just to fight for their membership at contract time. It is to organize the workforce to fight collectively for its interests all of the time. Contrary to the ILWU leadership’s line that union membership is a “privilege” that has to be earned by climbing up the tier ladder, membership in the union is a necessity if longshore workers are going to mobilize their combined power as one fist against the bosses.

The Committee to End Tier Segregation has stepped forward to begin that fight now. It scored its first victory at the June Local 10 meeting, when union members voted overwhelmingly against the local leadership’s attempt to institute a new “A minus” tier that would have restricted the jobs available to A-men with less than five years’ seniority. Founded by a small group of A-men, the Committee put itself on the map by taking a stand. Turnbull told Workers Vanguard that a number of A-men came over to the Committee’s table at the meeting to sign on to its mission statement (see below), and others have since signed on.

The whole tier setup is designed to make B-men and especially casuals think that the only way they can get ahead is to keep their heads down. Many fear that the union won’t back them if they fight to improve their conditions, and for good reason. In 2017, longshore workers—many of whom had been casuals for a decade or more—protested outside the ILWU Local 13 union hall in Wilmington to demand more work and benefits. The local leadership turned its back on them, issuing a statement of their commitment “to fill all labor needed for the movement of cargo in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.” That commitment is to provide a cheap labor pool of casuals, who only get to work when the PMA needs them.

There are thousands of casual workers at the L.A./Long Beach port, where it can take 15-20 years to work up to B status. Some hope to collect enough hours to make it into the ILWU, eventually. For others, picking up some work at the port as a casual is a side gig to earn some extra money. Still others look to get in as skilled mechanics, becoming steady men who are hired directly by the shipping companies in order to bypass and subvert the union hiring hall. The L.A./Long Beach port is the largest in the U.S. Bringing casuals there into the union is especially crucial to strengthening the ILWU as a whole. The Committee to End Tier Segregation is looking to spread its fight to the union’s locals up and down the West Coast.

At the Oakland port, where fewer jobs are available, there are now 1,000 casuals, more than there has ever been. These workers are barely getting one shift a month, having to work other jobs just to survive. Many want to push the union forward as their very futures depend on making it as A-men. But they often see little way to do so other than getting in the good graces of the union leadership.

The Local 10 leadership blames the membership for weakening the union, arguing that most A-men put getting more work and money for themselves above the union’s interests. This finds an echo among casuals, who see A-men work double or sometimes even triple shifts while they get no work. But the mentality of getting yours while you still can is itself the product of the tier divisions, which the ILWU leadership helped set up and works together with the PMA to enforce. With conditions at the ports becoming worse, and fearing that increasing automation will eliminate their jobs, many A-men see little other answer than to make a quick buck while work is still available.

Contrary to what many casuals might believe, it’s not that the A’s don’t care about anyone but themselves. Many of the casuals and B’s are the sons and daughters of the A-men, who desperately want to see their family members get full-time work with good wages and benefits. At the same time, many A’s see no way out of the current setup, short of bringing down their own work hours, pay and benefits to level the playing field for all longshore workers. This consciousness is fed by the union leadership, which ties the fate of the workers to the profits of the PMA.

The Committee to End Tier Segregation is fighting to bring all longshore workers up, not A-men down. This includes preserving seniority rights in access to job boards and training. Crucially, the Committee is fighting for shorter work shifts to spread the available work among all hands, with a big wage increase so that no one takes a pay cut. That is the only way for longshore workers to get the benefit of labor-saving automation, limit the wear and tear on their bodies and get more time for their lives and their families, while improving their standard of living.

Abolishing the tier divisions will take a major coastwide showdown with the PMA, and behind it, the government whose sinking economy depends on keeping the supply chain up and running. This is not going to happen under a leadership that limits the union’s demands to what is acceptable to the PMA. Instead of fighting for what the workers need, the ILWU bureaucracy operates more as labor contractors for the shipping bosses, supplying them with workers who can be brought in when needed and discarded when not.

The very leadership that enforces the tier divisions, beginning with the exclusion of casuals and B-men from union membership, appeals to the casuals that the way to become union members is to follow the path it has set. The Committee to End Tier Segregation is acting to change this equation and seeking to unite A’s, B’s and casuals in struggle to abolish the tier divisions. It has made this fight a real issue in Local 10, crucially winning the support of some A-men. The situation is ripe for B’s and casuals to join the effort to rally greater numbers of longshore workers behind the Committee. This is a crucial first step to strengthening the union, bringing all longshore workers up and preparing them for the struggles to come.