The titled officers preside over the International Executive Board meeting, (left to right), International Secretary-Treasurer Willie Adams, International President James Spinosa, and International Vice President, Mainland Robert McEllrath.

photos by Tom Price

The ILWU International Executive Board met Dec. 1-2 in San Francisco and finalized the budget proposal and per capita (or dues) rates it will present to the union’s International Convention next May.

The International Convention, the highest decision-making body of the union, will hold its proceedings in Vancouver, British Columbia May 15-19, 2006. There the elected delegates from every ILWU local and IBU region will vote to decide the union’s budget and per capita rates for the next three years, as well as its policies and direction.

In meetings over the last six months, the IEB’s Trustees, along with the International Titled Officers and the Secretary-Treasurers of the IBU and Hawaii Local 142, fashioned a financial plan all these different interests in the union could agree upon. The budget projects the costs of all the International’s programs over the next three years and the proposed per capita rates will provide the funding.


Hawaii Local 142 delegates (left to right) Martin Jensen, Jerry Lagazo and Arthur Reeves.

The budget the IEB voted to propose to the Convention delegates for their consideration is a "status quo" plan that neither calls for any new major programs or makes any significant cuts in what the union is currently doing. Still, because costs have gone up across the board over the last three years, the plan calls for modest increases in member dues or per capita. These increases are distributed progressively, with those members who earn the most carrying the heavier burden, and those who earn the least paying minimally more. The budget also projects a small surplus so the union will be able to withstand unforeseen emergency expenses.


Hawaii Local 142 President Fred Galdones & Local 142 Longshore representative Eli Miura.

The IEB also reviewed the International’s finances for the third quarter of 2005 and found them to be in order. International Secretary-Treasurer Willie Adams reported on an arrangement the International recently reached with warehouse Local 26 to begin payment of its overdue 2-4-24 organizing assessment. Lack of payment of the funds has caused the local to not be seated at the last two International Conventions. Local 26 has agreed to begin making payments of $500 per month until the entire debt is paid off.


(left to right) Puget Sound representatives Max Vekich and Conrad Spell and Columbia River representative Jerry Ylonen.

The board also heard from IBU San Francisco Regional Director Marina Secchitano on a jurisdictional issue affecting her members. The National Park Service recently put out to bid its contract for ferry service to Alcatraz Island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. For decades the Blue and Gold Fleet had the contract and some 40 IBU deckhands and Mates, Masters and Pilots officers had been doing the work. But the Park Service just announced it was giving the contract to Hornblower Yachts, Inc., a non-union company.


International Vice President, Hawaii Wesley Furtado

Secchitano said she was getting the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Labor Council to back her Region’s position that the Alcatraz ferry contract should remain with Blue and Gold and that the union workers should retain the ferry jobs. International President Jim Spinosa agreed that he would meet with other maritime unions and get them on board with a campaign to save the Alcatraz ferry union jobs.


International President James Spinosa (second from right) and International Vice President, Mainland Robert McEllrath (second from left) unveil the plaque in remembrance of International Representative Jerry martin as International Vice President, Hawaii Wesley Furtado (left) and ILWU organizer Carey Dall (right) applaud.

At the end of the first day of the meeting the entire board went down to the second floor of the ILWU building where the Organizing Dept. has its offices to dedicate a plaque to former International Representative Jerry Martin. Martin, who had spent 14 years as an ILWU organizer, first for Local 142 in Hawaii and later in California working out of the International office, died in a tragic car accident Sept. 15, 2004 at age 57. A hard-working organizer, he was an inspiration to all those who labored beside him.

The plaque reads:

In Solidarity Forever…"