International President James Spinosa.  Photo by Steve Stallone.

Brothers and Sisters:

When we last gathered for our International Convention in San Francisco three years ago, we had just emerged victorious from the biggest attack the employers had made on the ILWU in more than 50 years. We were challenged, but not beaten.

We came out stronger, having exercised our power and learned what we could do. And we were wiser, knowing where our weaknesses were and moving to shore them up. And we applied what we learned not just in our crucial Longshore Division, but across the board, in all divisions and groupings in our union.

We need to review those actions this week and figure out what we need to do to further strengthen and build this union so that we and other future ILWU members can continue to enjoy the benefits of this great union.

Because the ILWU is a rank-and-file union, you, the elected delegates, have a heavy responsibility to those you represent and to those who came before us and to those who will follow. This task is all the more difficult because we have just one short week to do it in. I urge you all to seriously dig into your committee work and fashion the best programs and resolutions you can. Your union is counting on you.

In 2002 we faced an all-out war, declared by our employers in alliance with George Bush and most of the Republican Party. The employers’ lockout, shutting down the U.S. West Coast, was a high-stakes, bold move that reverberated through the American economy and the international maritime trade system. Bush’s threat to have the military seize our ports, his threat to outlaw the ILWU’s right to strike and collectively bargain, and ultimately, his imposition of the Taft-Hartley injunction, were all aimed at ending the ILWU as a progressive force for working people around the world. Our victory over the combined wealth and power of the international maritime trade industry and the most anti-labor administration the U.S. has ever seen was tremendous. But it is temporary.

Right now I would like to stop and acknowledge our hosts, our brothers and sisters of ILWU Canada. We had many friends who helped us win in 2002, but today we are again receiving the hospitality of those who know what solidarity is. During the lockout, our employers tried to move their cargo through the ports of British Columbia. But they ran right into ILWU longshore workers. If there was U.S.-bound cargo aboard a ship, they wouldn’t move it. If U.S.-bound containers were in the way of Canadian-bound containers, they removed the U.S. ones, unloaded the Canadian ones and then put the U.S. ones back on the ship. They showed the employers and the world the true meaning of "An injury to one is an injury to all."

As I said, our victory in 2002 was tremendous, but temporary. We now face a different type of warfare, a war of attrition, a constant test of our strength and endurance. They are pounding us with incessant legislative and political attacks, trying to use legitimate port security concerns to screen our members off the waterfront and take over much of the work of our marine clerks. Under the guise of Social Security reform and pension reform, the employers are trying to eliminate our retirement.

Under port security concerns and mandates they continue to try to ruin our reputation, painting us as the terrorist risk to port security, while they avoid Coast Guard security regulations that require terminal operators to check and monitor containers. They try to paint us as greedy while they post record profits.

Their economic policies, their globalization and free trade agreements are feeding us with one hand and hurting us with the other. Sure our Longshore Division is doing well, but our sugar and pineapple in Hawaii and our manufacturing on the mainland are being devastated. Then, as corporations’ overseas businesses drive their American and Canadian divisions bankrupt, they claim they can no longer afford the health care and pensions they have long signed contracts to provide.

This is the battleground they have chosen to challenge us on. But it is one we can fight on.

It’s what the ILWU has always done, the not-so-secret formula of our union’s success through the decades—and that is to mobilize the power of the rank and file. That was the most effective tactic we used in 2002. Training our rank and file and expanding our capacity to work effectively has been the focus of our programs and our practice in the last three years and will continue to be our priority.

As the delegates at our last Convention mandated, we have expanded our rank-and-file education program, training more and more of our members in leadership skills and providing opportunities for them to exercise those skills in service to their union. Leadership is something that needs to be learned and developed. Building a cadre of confident and capable members is the best way to protect our union and move it forward.

The budget proposal that will come before you later this week will continue our education program. We will hold another of our Secretary-Treasurer and Trustee trainings in early 2007 to keep local officers up to date on administrative techniques and the government’s latest financial reporting requirements. In the fall of 2007 we will hold another of our LEAD, or Leadership Education and Development seminars, our own unique blend of skills building and grounding in the history and traditions of the ILWU.

The Titled Officers have decided to put further educational programs on hold in 2008 in order to devote all our research and education resources to the longshore contract negotiations that year.

We have been using our educated and motivated members to fight back on the political and legislative front. Following the mandate of our last Convention, we have held two Legislative Conferences in Washington, D.C., one in 2004 and another just last March. We sent about 60 rank and filers to directly lobby Congressional Representatives and Senators and their staffs. They were learning by doing. And they learned that union workers are the best advocates for their own cause.

In 2002, for the first time, we joined in the AFL-CIO’s national election action and sent more than 30 rank and filers to five battleground states. In 2004 we sent more than 100 rank and filers out in a similar effort. Scores more campaigned in their local areas. Everywhere they went we heard the same story from those they worked with. They said the ILWU folks were the best. They were enthusiastic, energetic and became the natural group leaders.

In 2002 we failed to weaken the Republicans’ grip on Congress. In 2004 we actually beat Bush, but he managed to steal a second election and remain president. But the arrogant way he has used power is coming back to haunt him.

His single-minded, stubborn approach to the war in Iraq has been a complete disaster. If the definition of insanity is doing the same wrong thing over and over and expecting different results, this president is out of touch. People are starting to understand his policy is not worth the price.

And yet, while U.S. troops sit on the second largest oil reserve in the world, oil prices are skyrocketing. Add to that the scandals and indictments in his administration, the escalating job losses due to free trade agreements and outsourcing, ever rising health care costs, the loss of pensions and the threatened cuts in Social Security, and it’s no surprise Bush’s ratings have dropped to a record low.

All this presents us with a great opening to break the Republican stranglehold on Congress this November. We have the political momentum. We and the rest of the labor movement have the trained and battle-hardened troops. We must mobilize them again this election. This is an opportunity we cannot miss. It’s up to us to seize the moment.

It is a sad but true fact that political action work requires money. We need to not only staff and operate our legislative office in Washington, D.C., and send rank and filers to the Capitol to lobby, we need to contribute money to pro-worker politicians. They have to run for reelection and ward off challenges by better funded pro-business candidates or they won’t be around to help us. The law requires that union donations come from a voluntary fund, so this makes our task so much harder. We are asking each member to contribute $50 toward our Political Action Fund. Last time many members offered more, giving as much as $500. We raised more than half a million dollars. We must to do even better this time.

Many of the ILWU credit unions along the Coast are working with us to put aside a certain amount each week out of ILWU members’ paychecks. In your report backs to your locals, please urge your members to sign up with their credit unions and have a small donation made weekly toward protecting their jobs.

While we battle at the national political level and in our state and provincial legislatures, there’s a battle for the hearts and minds of the public that so much influences policy and law. After recognizing in 2002 that we could and must use the media, and learning how to do it, we have made the first moves towards building a Public Relations apparatus with plans to expand it.

We have done a series of public and media speaking trainings along the Coast for local officials. Last January we held a week-long seminar to train 61 rank and filers in speaking, writing and video skills. As usual, our members learned these things quickly. And many of them are ready for the advanced challenges and trainings we have planned.

Once again our trained members have gone back to their locals and put their schooling to practice. Besides making sure their regular community work is noted in the local press and that the union’s political concerns are duly and accurately portrayed, they are also making sure the media and the public know that the ILWU’s issues are in sync with those of our communities.

The best example of this is the anti-air pollution campaign we call "Saving Lives," started by Local 13 member and LA Harbor Commissioner Joe Radisich. Up and down the Coast the ILWU is backing this campaign and putting the union in front of the fight against the worst environmental problem facing all West Coast port communities. We are equating worker safety with public health. And in the process we are getting not only wide-spread publicity and sympathy, we have embarrassed the employers into doing far more to cut air pollution than we demanded in our 2002 longshore negotiations and couldn’t get from them.

Also, we designed and had built an ILWU exhibit booth we have used to raise our profile and spread our word at numerous events, including a major goods movement conference on pollution last January in Long Beach and at the AFL-CIO’s Union Label and Trade show in Portland last year and in Cleveland last week. Again, members who have gone through our education programs staffed the booth at all these events, giving the ILWU voice and face.

And of course, keeping up with the times, we’ve expanded our presence on the Web to give the ILWU greater visibility. Not only have we improved and updated the International’s website, particularly the Longshore Division section, but many of our locals have set up their own sites or upgraded their first ones.

Fortunately we are not in this fight alone. We are part of a larger national and international labor movement with many friends, some of whom are with us this week.

First, of course, is the AFL-CIO, whose Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka is with us again. Richard was at the table during our drawn- out longshore negotiations in 2002, especially during the crucial time we were under the Taft-Hartley injunction, bringing his experience and the federation’s resources. We also have with us the leader of the British Columbia Federation of Labor Jim Sinclair, who works closely with our Canadian brothers and sisters. We will be hearing from both Richard and Jim during this week. But let me say right now that we are grateful for their dependable solidarity and are proud to be an active part of their federations.

We also continue our special alliance with the Teamsters and our East Coast longshore partners in the International Longshoremen’s Association. The ILA International officers have expressed continued support for our agreement. Our good friend Ken Riley, president of ILA Charleston Local 1422 and the leader of the Charleston 5 fight, is with us here today.

Also with us today is Chuck Mack, a Teamster International Vice President and leader of their Port Truckers Division. Together our two unions have embarked on an historic organizing drive to unionize the port truckers, the worst paid workers on the waterfront. These are workers who, once organized, treated with dignity and fairly compensated, can become an essential back up for us in the ports. In the important Southern California ports we already have 2,000 truckers signed up for our union effort. Our goal is to have a Teamster/ILWU port truckers division.

Through our connections with the Teamsters we are keeping relations with the unions that have formed the new Change to Win federation. While we would prefer that the House of Labor stay united, the ILWU will continue to work with and support all workers engaged in struggle anytime and anywhere.

We are also fortunate to have many strong and strategically located international friends.

The ITF, the International Transport Workers’ Federation, is one of the oldest global labor federations. The ITF’s Secretary General, David Cockroft will be with us this week and will address the Convention. The ITF represents all kinds of transport workers—dockers, sailors, truckers and railroad and airline workers. As many of you know, the ILWU supplies the inspectors along the North American West Coast to check on the conditions of the seafarers aboard the ships we work. I’m sure Brother Cockroft will tell you more about that. You will also hear more this week about how the ITF is assisting our warehouse Local 17 in Sacramento organize the Blue Diamond almond workers.

Another one of our great friends with us this week is Paddy Crumlin, the National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia. The ties between the ILWU and Australia only started with the fact that our founder and first International President Harry Bridges was an Australian immigrant. Through years of struggle and solidarity, particularly recently, we have forged close bonds. We visit each other regularly to keep them tight. Paddy and the Australian miners union were instrumental in helping us put on the Mining and Maritime conference in Long Beach last year that brought together unions in those industries from around the Pacific Rim to find ways to help each other with our mutual international employers. Our pensioners have even formed an alliance with the retired MUA members.

Unfortunately, our friends from the International Dockworkers Council could not join us here this week, but we stay in regular contact with them. We sent delegations twice recently to Europe to demonstrations they and the ITF organized against government and employer attempts to de-unionize their ports. We know that if it happens there, it will be tried again here. Their fight is our fight. Our actions stopped those plans. The European dockers know they can count on us and we know—and the employers know—they will be there for us if we need them in 2008.

Before we recess today we will also be renewing our Solidarity Agreement with the Japanese dockworkers of Zenkowan. For decades we have had strong worker-to-worker ties with our Japanese longshore brothers that transcend our language and cultural differences. We will once again honor those bonds and formally renew our friendship and solidarity.

But the ILWU also has internal difficulties we need to deal with this week, problems within all our divisions and groupings we need to address.

As we all know, 9-11 changed our world. The very real threat of terrorism has made us as dockworkers have to face up to the vulnerability of our ports and the need for real security. Since Sept. 12, 2001 the ILWU has been engaged in shaping port security policy.

We have been lobbying politicians, testifying before Congress, intervening in legislation and joining every committee and board on the issue we can to make sure our concerns and point of view are included. But let’s be clear here—the Republicans and our employers have been just as busy devising new ways to use legitimate security concerns against our union, to handcuff us with more and more regulations and take away our jobs and dispatch halls. We have been trying to focus security efforts on the real risk—the millions of uninspected containers that enter the U.S. and Canada every year, the unchecked container seals and the empty containers.

But the employers and the Republicans have been focusing on longshore workers as the security risk and pushing for background checks and restricted access. Their plans are much less effective in providing real security, but are much easier to implement.

So now we are facing Terrorist Watch list name matching and Transportation Worker Identification Cards, TWIC cards, required to work on the docks, that include criminal background checks.

In an effort to cooperate with the government, the International Officers and I are in agreement to move the union in a positive direction and seek endorsement of our locals to meet and coordinate with local Coast Guard and TSA officials in making available a list of our members’ names and dates of birth as required by federal regulations. I know this is a controversial position with some of our members, but let me explain why I think we should do this.

First, the government will get the list anyway from our employers. At least if we give it to them, we know it will be complete and accurate, and if they come up with any false matches, we will be informed so we can appeal and fight them. We can’t trust our employers not to try to cherry pick out some of our members, and probably some of our best and most active members. Second, we are certain there are no terrorists in our union and we want to prove that once and for all. That will give us solid ground to argue against members being screened off the waterfront for non-terrorist related crimes when the TWIC background checks are done. We need to pick our battles carefully and take on the ones we can win.

And let me be absolutely clear here—if any false matches come up in the terrorist name matching, we will fight them. We will demand an independent and transparent appeals process to challenge any charges. Don’t let anyone, anywhere, any time question the ILWU’s resolve to protect every member. An injury to one is an injury to all.

And if the government uses the Terrorist Watch list and the TWIC background checks to come after our union, if they dare to turn this into a McCarthyite witch hunt, let me assure you, the ILWU will respond with our full fury and force and that of our many friends. We will not provoke this fight, but we will not back down.

Here in Canada the port security situation is even worse. The background checks being proposed are way more intrusive, requiring detailed information not just about the longshore workers, but also about their spouses and their families. The government wants to know their credit history, their ethnic origin and even their sexual preferences. Workers could be disqualified and never learn why so they could try to defend themselves. To their credit, ILWU Canada has organized the other longshore unions in the country to fight back.

The Longshore Division has other difficulties as well, especially how new technology is being introduced. The employers continue to lie and cheat in every way they can to use technology to outsource our jobs. They try to overwhelm us with paperwork and deadlines. But our Technology Committees are up to the challenge and the Division has the money and the will to continue to fight for our jurisdiction.

It’s no secret that our Warehouse Division is hurting. Most locals in the Division are at or near their lowest membership numbers in years. Just-in-time delivery and warehousing on the docks, runaway shops and outsourcing, and industry turnover all make it difficult to hang on to union houses and to bargain good contracts for remaining ones.

The only answer, of course, is organizing. But under these conditions that’s a tough task, one that will require the strategic use of the ILWU’s unique power and the commitment of its members, especially our longshore workers.

This week you will be asked to support a plan for a new "March Inland" organizing campaign. The plan is to follow the massive amounts of containers from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the warehouse and distribution centers in inland Southern California and use our port power to help those workers organize into the ILWU. This will rebuild warehouse Local 26, whose membership numbers have been stagnant as it sees its companies closing as fast as they can organize new ones. At the same time, this inland organizing will protect the strategic Southern California flanks of the Longshore Division.

The Local 17 drive to organize the Blue Diamond almond workers has the same approach. Blue Diamond is the world’s largest almond processor and about 70 percent of its nuts are exported, mostly through the Port of Oakland. It is going to be a tough campaign because the company is taking a hard stand against the union. But you’ll learn more Tuesday about how pressure is being applied when all you Convention delegates will get a chance to participate in an action with and for the Blue Diamond workers.

Local 17, along with longshore Local 18, have beat back developer plans to yuppify Sacramento’s faltering waterfront. They have kept it for maritime use long enough for the Port of Oakland to step in as a partner and run it as part of its profitable operation. But it took long and hard political and community work to achieve. In protecting its current jobs and organizing new ones, Local 17 exemplifies the ILWU spirit.

Northern California’s Local 6, our biggest warehouse local, continues to set the standard for warehouse work, bargaining the Master Warehouse Contract along with Local 17 and three Teamster locals. But like in all the more than 60 contracts the local bargains and administers, rising health care costs and corporations’ moving away from taking responsibility for pensions makes each negotiation tougher. But the local’s new leadership is rebuilding its organizing program and making progress.

Our new Columbia River warehouse local, Local 5, built on Powell’s Books, is going through the growing pains of any new local, rank and filers learning how to run their own local and deal with financial difficulties. But they are not long from their own organizing drive and their leadership understands the need to organize and the benefits of it. They have plans to grow and the International Organizing Dept. will be there to help.

Seattle Local 9 is in serious trouble. This is the second Convention in a row they have been financially unable to send a delegation. Since their largest house, the Hasbro Toy warehouse at the Port of Seattle, closed a few years ago, the already marginal local was cut in half and is down to only a couple of hundred members.

Our Marine Division, the Inlandboatmen’s Union, is facing similar problems in their crucial tow boat sector. Non-union companies, sometimes ones owned by the same company they have a contract with, underbid their work. Again, the response must be organizing, and you will be asked this week to support an IBU-International tow boat organizing campaign.

The IBU’s San Francisco Bay Region’s ferry sector has the same kind of challenge. The National Park Service just awarded the contract for the lucrative tourist ferry service to Alcatraz Island to a non-union company. An IBU company had the contract for decades. The union is now working with the new contractor to organize those jobs.

Hawaii Local 142 was originally built on the sugar and pineapple plantations, but most of that work has been outsourced to places where labor is non-union and cheap. Right now Del Monte is phasing out its pineapple and cannery operations on the Islands over the next couple of years. Hundreds of jobs are gone for good.

But Local 142 has followed the economy’s transition from plantations to tourist destination. They’ve done it with good, old-fashioned organizing, working hard and working smart. And now tourism is the biggest sector of the local.

Our people in Alaska, especially in longshore, are having a hard time hanging onto their work because of the lack of union density. Employers are going unchallenged as they set up new, non-union operations, often right next to our union ones. Alaska longshore workers won a good contract last year after some very difficult bargaining. But if these new facilities and their workers are not brought into the ILWU and share in our bounty, all the work will flow there and the good contract will be meaningless. A resolution to support a new organizing drive in Alaska will be coming before you this week and we need your vote and your active support.

There’s one last thing we must do before I finish. We must pay our respects to those in our ranks who have lost their lives in accidents on the job in the last three years. We all know the worse may happen every day we turn to, but it’s hard to think about it and still get through the day. But every time we strap on our hard hats, slip into our neon vests and lace up our safety boots, we should think about those we are going back home to when the shift is over. Be safe for them, yourselves and all your brothers and sisters around you.

I am now going to read the names and locals of those we have lost and then I ask you for a moment of silence in their memory.

Richie Mraz—Local 13

Douglas Espinoza—Local 6

Matt Petrasich—Local 94

Robert Padgett—Local 10

Robert Smith—Local 23

Kimberly Kuchman-Miles—Local 23

Epifanio (Epi) Hernandez—Local 500

Warren Minura—Local 142

Thank you. Now in remembrance of all those who came before us and made so many sacrifices to get us here, and in dedication to those who will follow us, let’s make this Convention a great success.


The Convention stops for a moment of silence in honor of ILWU members killed on the job.  Photo by Lewis Wright.