By James Spinosa

ILWU International President

Our entire country has been stunned by the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We have all been moved by compassion to reach out and find some way to help those who have suffered so much.

So many have lost their homes and most of their worldly possessions. And so many have lost their places of work, the jobs and income that sustained them and their families. The loss of a sense of home and community is by itself devastating, but being separated from loved ones, having lost touch with them for so many anxious days and weeks, or having lost them for good—it’s all so overwhelming.

Characteristically, the ILWU family immediately jumped into the fray to provide aid and comfort. In our locals up and down the Coast, officers and rank and filers quickly sized up the needs, what they could best do to meet them and got down to it. The basic necessities and small comforts of life are not the only things in short supply—so is hope. And we must help with that too.

There won’t be a quick fix to this disaster. Recovery will be a long process and we have to commit to being there for the long haul. As organized labor has always known and practiced, the best way to assure that commitment over time is through an organized and structured program. So I and the other officers of the ILWU have worked out a plan for ILWU longshore workers to raise and donate money to the ongoing relief effort for the next six months.

We have decided to work with and through our friends and allies in the AFL-CIO. The labor union federation that stood by us during the 2002 longshore contract fight is now leading a comprehensive program to help working people in the Gulf area get back on their feet.

The AFL-CIO has set up worker centers in seven cities where evacuees are staying—Baton Rouge, Houston, Atlanta, Mobile, Dallas, San Antonio and Pearl, Mississippi. These centers are providing job referrals, counseling and information services to dislocated workers and their families. They are also guiding families as they apply for government and other assistance, helping them access aid as expeditiously as possible. The centers will also fulfill some immediate needs of victims by distributing supplies, clothing, etc.

Under our new program, interested ILWU longshore workers can, with ease and convenience, make voluntary, charitable contributions for hurricane relief efforts directly through individual payroll withholding. In addition, our longshore employer PMA will match dollar-for-dollar on the first $250,000 of contributions by longshore workers through this program. This program is completely voluntary.

To participate, all you need to do is sign and return to PMA a consent form, "ILWU-PMA Voluntary Payroll Authorization," specifying the amount you choose to have withheld from your paycheck in each weekly payroll period between Nov. 1, 2005 and April 30, 2006. You may also choose to cancel your donations at any time before April 30, 2006.

In the special notice regarding the ILWU-PMA hurricane relief campaign along with the consent form for authorization of withholding donations are reproduced on the last page of this issue. The consent form can be cut out and used to submit to PMA. The special notice and consent form are also being distributed to all longshore workers through the joint dispatch halls, local Union offices and local PMA offices.

If you choose to participate in this voluntary program, the minimum amount that PMA can withhold from each paycheck is $5.00 due to administrative reasons. The withholding program will cover approximately 26 payroll periods during the six-month period. So, for example, a minimum contribution of $5.00 per paycheck during 26 weekly payroll periods would amount to approximately $130 by the end of the six-month program.

The funds raised from ILWU members through this payroll withholding program will go entirely to the special Hurricane Relief Fund of the AFL-CIO’s Union Community Fund (UCF), labor’s charity for working families and communities in distress. The contributions will go to UCF worker centers that are assisting working families in the Gulf region devastated by the hurricanes. None of the monies donated will go towards "administrative fees." In the event that the UCF worker centers need to close sooner than expected, UCF will give any remaining donations from our program to other charitable organizations providing hurricane relief. So all ILWU monies will be devoted to hurricane relief efforts. The Union Community Fund is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) public charity. Donations to UCF are, therefore, tax-deductible to the extent provided by law for charitable contributions. PMA’s matching contributions will go to a hurricane relief public charity yet to be determined. (See payroll deduction form on back page.)

Those affected most by the hurricanes are workers and the poor, in this case mostly people of color who have been the victims of an unjust system for generations. We need to show the same unwavering solidarity in the face of this devastation caused by nature as we do to devastation caused by the bosses, when our fellow workers are on strike or locked out or under another Bush or Schwarzenegger attack—because that is part of this.

This was not just a "natural disaster." Certainly there were ferocious and horrendous hurricanes. But it was political decisions that turned disaster into catastrophe.

New Orleans flooded because of a political decision by the Bush administration not to fund reinforcement for the levees that would have held back most of the city’s floodwaters, and instead use that money for the Iraq War and the tax cuts for the rich. It was a political decision by the Bush administration to move FEMA away from being a natural disaster emergency relief agency and to put someone with absolutely no experience in the field in charge of it. And it’s a political decision by the Bush administration to use this devastating disaster to further attack workers and make them victims again.

In the Katrina situation, Bush has invoked emergency powers to "suspend" certain laws passed by Congress and signed by a sitting president. The first one was the law guaranteeing "prevailing" area wages for federal government-funded building projects.

If all those billions are going to be spent rebuilding New Orleans and that area of the Gulf Coast, a good strategy would be to give local workers in Louisiana and Mississippi decent pay. In that part of the country, prevailing wage amounts to only about $9.00 per hour. Economists figure that would reverberate seven or eight times through the local economy.

But Bush believes that $9.00 per hour would hinder growth and the contracts being given to Halliburton and his other corporate pals. It’s not enough that his policies led to this disaster, but now he means to make workers pay for it again.

It’s times like these that make us so acutely aware of how much we rely on each other to overcome the inevitable adversities. We are not an individualist, ownership society. We are interdependent. And an injury to one is an injury to all.