On July 5, 1934, known forever as “Bloody Thursday,” longshoremen did not die for a 35 cent raise.
Longshoremen did not die, for a 6 hour work day.
Longshoremen did not die, for time and a half for overtime.
Longshoremen died on “Bloody Thursday,” for the right to bargain collectively.
Rather than talking about the proud history of the collective bargaining process blazed by the ILWU, Big Baby opened his Caucus last week with an hour long “off the record” discussion about keeping secrets and the internet website that makes him crazy.
Big Baby was incredibly successful at getting his Caucus to keep what they were doing secret, while they were in San Francisco, but now they are back home and talking.
Seems like very few of the Caucus delegates were interested in Big Baby’s “Retailer Federation” 3-year offer of an average wage increase, and some money for some retirees.
Local 10 went on the record as being against the extension, because they want to talk about increases in the widow’s pensions, which at present are 75% of their husbands pay out. By the time 2022 rolls around a lot of the widows they are trying to help will have passed. The 3 years between 2019 and 2022 matter to Local 10 and to the present and future ILWU widows.
Local 23 said they were against presenting the extension to the membership, they want to bargain in 2019.
One of the delegates from the “North” said that the membership was not smart enough to do the right thing. I guess that means he did not want to present the extension proposal.
It is my belief that if the members get all the information, they will do the right thing. It is not that the membership is not smart enough, it is that they are not getting all the information, which is why I do this.
Bobby O Jr. and Sunshine tried to prevent the offer from even being presented to the membership. Bobby tried twice, once at the beginning of the Caucus, claiming the proposal was “shit” and should not be put to any vote, and again right before the vote at the end of the Caucus.
Bobby, Sunshine and a couple of other Local 13 delegates were 2 blocked by Local 13 President, Mark Mendoza, who told his membership he would refuse to accept any proposal that was “shit,” but then for unexplained reasons changed his tune and voted in favor of presenting the offer to the membership.
If Local 13’s May 4, 2017, Regular Union Meeting is used to measure interest, the fact they did not have a quorum says that the membership is not very interested in hearing about the extension, but Mark Mendoza went on with the meeting anyway. It will be up to Union leadership to sell the proposal and to that end Frank Ponce de Leon and Ray Familathe were at the meeting and said the vote was going to be as usual and the ballots would be coming in the mail, but they took no questions related to the extension proposal. It was said delegates would be giving reports in June at the Contract extension proposal meeting.
That’s it, minimal information was given to the membership and no effort to sell the proposal was made at all, by International or Local 13 Officials.
The Caucus did not vote in favor of accepting the offer, they voted in favor of presenting the offer to the membership.
That means the Union is not required to “promote passage” and can just tell the members to vote their conscience.
During debate at the Caucus, 2 reasons were given to accept the “offer.” First, is a ridiculous claim that the next International President will not have the experience needed to negotiate in 2019. Second, was that Local 13 does not want to strike.
So there it is; the ILWU is being asked to give up their right to collectively bargin in 2019, because the next International President will not be up to the task, and Local 13 does not want to strike.
Local 13 does not want to strike in 2019?
Of course they don’t, no one wants to strike!
Those are not good enough reasons to give up on trying to get widows 100% of their husbands pension pay, or the right to collectively bargain over jurisdictional issues and problems with the Medical Plan benefits which are still messed up because of the Port Medical fraud, or the PGP.
The robot docks have been up and running for about 2 years. If the Union gives up the right to bargain for 3 more years it will be too late to make any changes and the membership will be screwed.
Big Baby does not care about any of this, he is retiring, and just wants another Contract under his belt.
Do not let Big Baby do the Grain deal oka doke, again.
Say yes to collective bargaining and vote NO on the Contract extension.
More to come….