Corrupt pay practices and secret agreements are now standard procedure with ILWU & PMA.

Corrupt pay practices involving the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach steady men, first identified by Union Arbitrator John Pandora in his Decisions SC-9-97 and SC-10-97, have not gone away.

In fact just the opposite has happened, the corrupt influences of Local 13 steady man Danny Imbagliazzo have now reached all the way to the top of both the ILWU and the PMA, with the help of con man (crane certified but never crane trained) Local 13 President Bobby Olvera Jr.

In Decision SC-9-97, ILWU member and ILWU/PMA Area Arbitrator John Pandora identified 43 steady men who were paid over $281,000 in violation of the PCLCD. He did not require the steady men to repay the money, he turned the matter over to the LA/LB Joint Port Labor Relations Committee to deal with it.

The LA/LB JPLRC did nothing. They let the steady men keep the money and did nothing to the Employer who paid it.

In Decision SC-10-97, ILWU member and ILWU/PMA Area Arbitrator John Pandora identified steady man Danny Imbagliazzo as the ring leader. The Arbitrator ruled that Imbagliazzo was a corrupting influence and ordered that he be removed from working as a steady man at MTC as long as he was a registered.

The LA/LB JPLRC did nothing, the Decision was never implemented, nor appealed; it was just ignored.

The corrupting influence of steady men, including Imbagliazzo, has been allowed to grow and develop since the 1997 Decisions and has now become part of the PCLCD, as a result of the secret agreements contained in the February 20, 2015 Letter of Understanding between Jim McKenna and Bob McEllrath.

This secret Crane Training:Pay Guarantee Agreement, which has not been given to all ILWU members, has not been approved by the rank-and-file or the CLRC and, is not part of the recently ratified MOU dated July 1, 2015.

On the same day the ILWU and PMA announced a tentative agreement on their 5-year deal, PMA-Press-Release-02-20-2015, they signed the secret Local 13 Crane Training Program Tentative Agreement, which includes all kinds of pay for steady men and includes under the table lump sum payments to hall crane drivers who work other than crane jobs.

PMA wanted access to crane drivers so badly that Jim McKenna himself agreed to the following:

– Only trained/certified longshoremen will be eligible to take Skill III Crane jobs.

– To train 250 crane drivers at a rate of at least 100 per year.

– To buy 4 new Vortex crane simulators, and possibly train on 2nd shift.

– Each Company will provide 4 steady men to assist training and not count their shifts toward the 20 shift cap.

– CY Training to continue at rate of 12 per month until sufficient competent operators are available.

– Eliminate Supplemental Crane board with exception of those in training or those now on the Board with 200 hours on the date of MOU ratification, who will be allowed to stay on for 1 year.

– ALL INDIVIDUALS CHECKED IN ON THE A AND B CRANE BOARDS SHALL BE PAID AT THE EQUIVALENT CRANE OPERATOR PREVAILING DAILY RATE OF PAY, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, REGARDLESS OF THE JOB THEY WORK IN ACCORDANCE WITH 14.521. THIS IS A MAKE WHOLE PAYMENT IN INDIVIDUALS WORK OTHER THAN A CRANE JOB. THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE.

– Immediately after agreement on MOU, Employers will revert to practice of ordering 2 men per machine (transtainer), and lift all restrictions on labor orders currently in place for weekends, 2nd and 3rd shifts, and holidays.

– PMA agreed to drop all (over 2000) outstanding PIT complaints against longshoremen for failing to work in a skill for which they had been trained.

I for one find it interesting that PMA’s Jim McKenna claims that he negotiated language to stop benefits fraud at the same time he negotiated a secret deal to pay make whole payments without reporting the hours, which is defrauding the benefits plan of assessments on those hours.  Management chief defends ILWU contract | JOC.com

What other secret agreements do Big Bob and Jim McKenna have?

Come on boys, there are no secrets on the waterfront. Or are there?

Chug, chug, chug……..

 

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Bobby O Jr.’s equalization con has been implemented. Gives whole new meaning to solidarity, Local 13 style.

While the ILWU was in Hawaii holding their Convention and Longshore Division Caucus, Bobby O Jr’s equalization con was put into play.

A new category of “super duper longshoreman” has been created.

If your are on the Crane Board you are now guaranteed 10 hours of crane pay no matter what job you do, as long as the crane jobs get covered.

You will get paid a lump sum payment for the 2 hours, plus differential if applicable, and no hours will be reported so you don’t have to add them to your total for dispatch and the Employers don’t have to pay the benefits assessments on the extra hours they pay to these super duper longshoremen.

This is Bobby O’s and Frank Ponce’s equalization formula designed to enhance the solidarity between the steady men and the hall men.

In order to sweeten the pot for the steady men, Bobby and Frank also eliminated the secondary crane board so only trained/certified longshoremen are eligible to take crane jobs.

Now the steady men can go out right after the Crane Board and get more hours that do not count against their guarantee, in addition to the extra $55/day they get just for being steady.

Too bad for the other Skill III equipment operators who are good enough to earn top pay, but not good enough to get the super duper guarantees given to the Crane Board.

Bobby’s and Frank’s new solidarity campaign is off to a flying start and should help the organizers who are out there selling the benefits of being a member of the ILWU.

The agreement to pay the new super duper longshoremen is in the Local 13 Port  Supplement the membership approved, without even being given a copy.

More to come…..

We are back.

 

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