Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 07:22:03 +0200
To: marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu,
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-G: Possible Los Angeles Dock Lock out


Here's a request for info from Labor-L list.

Info to lists and to Graeme at:

graemi2006-AT-RMPLC.CO.UK


Thanks,

Hugh
__________________________________________

This is simply a plea for any information

I have for the past 20 odd months been following and reporting on the
Liverpool Dockers dispute, which is going on in my home town. Right at this
moment delegates from Liverpool are attending an international conference
in Montreal of dock workers [the third they have organised] to see if the
international boycott of the Port of Liverpool can be extended.

Following an earlier visit of Liverpool 'flying pickets' [a journey of 6000
miles] to Los Angeles, there was a dispute involving mostly Latino truck
drivers who shuttle containers between the dockside and railheads. We are
now told that in order to overcome this particular 'class composition', a
new dock [name ?] connected directly by rail has been or is about to open.

The word is that the ILWU who have traditionally been able to enforce a
collective contract along the Pacific US coast, will be 'locked out' of
this facility.

Can anyone on any of the lists I am circulating supply / confirm any of the
above ?

Thanks in advance

Gra


____________________________________

Here's the first answer received.


Graeme--

        Here is some old information that may shed some light on the situation.

        In 1987-88, I acted as an unofficial consultant to some of these
short-haul truckers who were trying to organize in the San Francisco Bay
Area.  There was an organization in the LA/Long Beach area of similar
short-haul truckers who were trying to organize, but I have no idea of what
happened to them or how to contact them, and I don't have any contact with
the folks in the Bay Area any more, so I can't give you any leads,
unfortunately.  However, I'm sending this message because it might give you
some ideas, etc.

        There were two big problems with these truckers--(1) the
organization that I know of in both LA and SF areas consisted only of white
truckers.  There was some consciousness of the need to get Latinos to join
in the effort, as well as African-Americans, but while a few
African-Americans came to meetings, I cannot remember more than one or two
Latinos.  Also, none of the whites, including myself, that I know of spoke
Spanish.  Also, the whites were better paid and had better conditions, etc.
I think you can see the problems.  Without the whites taking an overt
anit-racist position and making strong efforts to bring Latinos and
African-Americans into the leadership, the effort was doomed to fail, which
is what happened in SF.  I don't know what happened in LA, although the
truckers in LA were more militant in their approach than our guys--my guess
is that you still have a number of people from the earlier effort are still
around, working in the industry.

        The second problem was that the short-haul truckers were
owner-operators--they were not employees, but o/o's who contracted with
freight forwarders to move loads to particular locations (in our case,
throughout Northern California).  This meant that the truckers owned their
own rigs--more accurately, the banks owned the trucks and the truckers were
paying them off--and thus had bill bills to pay off, so they had powerful
incentives to work as much as they could.  At the same time, the more loads
they hauled--these were container loads--the more money they made.  Their
goal was both to increase the money per load, but also to improve
efficiency on the docks so they could get their loads quicker, and thus,
try to haul more loads per day.  These guys could make pretty good money
when things went well, but they exploited the shit out of themselves and it
was pretty stressful work:  they were handling vehicles that, with their
cargo, could weigh as much as 80,000 pounds in heavy traffic, etc, in an
area that has a lot of rain and, at times, high winds.  Considering how
most people haven't a clue when driving around trucks, it was stressful,
plus there was always the pressure of needing to work to pay off their
trucks.

        At the same time, the ILWU folks generally put limits on how much
cargo they would move in a day--I don't know if this was ever "official",
but ...-- so as you can see, some conflict between the truckers and the
ILWU.

        But the truckers did have some sense of their potential strategic
power IF they could organize.  If they could've organized then loads
wouldn't have gotten off the docks--and that was power comparable to that
of the ILWU.  It would have been really neat to see what kind of hell we
could've raised!

        The problem is that these truckers were all very individualistic,
and without challenging that (which I think some of our guys were) AND the
racial issue, they were doomed to fail.  We tried different ways to
approach this, but ultimately all failed.

        Now, to address the current situation:  I don't know what
specifically the railroads and shippers are doing, but there's no question
that they want to move cargo from the docks to railheads as quickly and
efficiently as possible.  Ideally, they would want to control this process.
They cannot control the docks because of the ILWU--and they can't break
the ILWU.  But at the same time, they absolutely don't want the ILWU to get
ahold of another step in the "production process" here--and they could get
quite nasty if the ILWU tried to organize the truckers.

        I have no doubt of their willingness to play some nasty racial
games to keep the ILWU away from the truckers.   They could also try to cut
a deal with the Teamsters, but I doubt that's likely to work.  I think
their (the transportation companies') best approach would be to try to cut
a deal with the freight forwarders to get them to play the truckers off
against each other.  (In case it is not clear, the truckers not only haul
cargo to the railheads but they distribute "local" cargo directly to the
stores, warehouses, of companies throughout the region and a single trip
can be say 500 miles round-trip.  These trips are controlled by the freight
forwarders who, I believe, are contacted by the companies expecting loads
off ships, and the freight forwarders contract with individual truckers to
haul their loads for them, and while there are probably general standards,
the deal is cut between the individual trucker and the forwarding company.
The forwarders are key--the truckers need work to pay off their trucks/earn
a living, and the forwarders have the jobs, so as long as the individual
trucker stays in good graces with his/her forwarder, they can do alright;
if not, they're in shit city.)

        Anyway, since you asked for "any information," I thought I'd send
this along.  Hope it helps.

        Good luck--Kim




     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---