About 20 people were in attendance in the smallish room in Wheatley Hall Tuesday night when the Service Employees International Union held a forum to discuss the future of labor unions in an increasingly global economy. David Arian, former president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and a member of the ILWU bargaining team in 2002, and Peter Olney, associate director for the Institute for Labor and Employment at the University of California, and organizing director for the ILWU were the primary speakers.
The discussion forum covered issues that were important during the lockout of west coast dockworkers last year, such as the increase of shipping from foreign markets, and how unions must grow and change to accommodate these shifts.
“As production becomes more global, union strategies have to adapt, to take advantage of the weaknesses in the global supply and transportation chain,” said Rand Wilson, of Jobs with Justice and the SEIU a chief organizer of the forum.
In September 2002, 10,000 dockworkers were locked out when seeking concessions on health care, pensions, and rules governing the introduction of new technology. The ILWU commenced picketing shortly thereafter. The Bush Administration, pressured by employers, invoked the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, imposing an 80-day injunction on striking.
The Taft-Hartley Act gives the United States Attorney General the power to obtain an 80-day injunction when he or she believes a threatened or actual strike “imperiled the national health or safety.” An injunction “can sometimes make them more willing to settle,” said John Dunlop, a Harvard University professor emeritus and former Labor Secretary under the Ford Administration. However, a historical review of the use of Taft-Hartley found it often doesn’t produce the kind of long-term settlement both parties are seeking, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Rather, after imposing an 80-day cooling-off period, a stifled labor dispute often came roaring back.
The act was a reaction to the communist scare of the early 1950’s, and declared the “closed shop,” or union only workplace, illegal and permitted a union’s entry only after a majority vote by the employees. It also forbade jurisdictional strikes and secondary boycotts. Other aspects of the legislation included the right of employers to be exempted from bargaining with unions unless they wished to. The act forbade unions from contributing to political campaigns and required union leaders to affirm they were not supporters of the Communist Party.
Forced back to work, dockworkers eventually won a new 6-year agreement without any increase in their health insurance costs, record pension increases and continued limits on outsourcing.
The forum may been a step forward for the SEIU and ILWU, as Wilson says that in order to help unions adapt to changes in the global economy, “Workers need to form strong alliances and coalitions with community groups and with the public.”