Labor activists march on the Alcatraz scab ferry pier to demand the jobs be union. Photo by Steve Stallone.
By Steve Stallone Defying the Bush administration’s union-busting schemes, anti-union employers and predictions of rain, San Francisco’s labor movement turned out Dec. 9 to demand that the city’s historic waterfront remain union.
More than 50 union ferry workers lost their jobs Sept. 25 when the scab outfit Hornblower Yachts received the contract from the Bush administration’s National Park Service to operate the popular tourist ferries to Alcatraz Island. The workers, members of the Inlandboatmen’s Union (the Marine Division of the ILWU) and Masters, Mates and Pilots, who had worked the ferries since the NPS began the tours of the former high security prison back in 1973, were left stranded—jobless, their families’ health care cut off and their pension contributions suspended.
The two unions fought the contract transfer with a variety of tactics. They challenged it in court and in the National Labor Relations Board, organized political and community support and regularly picketed the Hornblower pier once the scab service started, even getting several members and supporters arrested a couple of times in civil disobedience actions.
This time they came in force. The numerous and colorful union banners, shimmering in the intermittent sun and sprinkles, punctuated the seriousness of the issue. Besides the unions whose members lost their jobs, all the ILWU Bay Area locals and maritime unions were accounted for. Almost 1,000 other unionists—Teamsters, teachers, bus drivers, janitors, hotel workers, machinists, pile drivers, construction workers and more—marched and chanted with them from Harry Bridges Plaza in front of the Ferry Building north to Pier 33 where Hornblower runs its ferry to Alcatraz. Several hundred ILWU Local 10 longshore workers—who re-scheduled their membership meeting, stopping all cargo movement at Bay Area ports for the day shift—marched from their hall in the opposite direction in a pincer move toward the Hornblower pier to join the rally.
The local Teamsters set up their large flatbed truck in front of the pier to serve as a stage for the rally. As city buses and fire trucks passed by along the Embarcadero, their union drivers blowing horns in support, IBU National President Alan Cote´ noted that the demonstrators were standing where the IBU first organized ferry workers in 1918. He vowed that with the help of the labor movement, the ferry workers would get their jobs back.
“They have lawyers and we have lawyers, but I have other resources too—I have you,” Cote´ said to the cheering crowd.
Cote´ went on to read a message of support from AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
“Hornblower was awarded the contract only because its bid disregarded prevailing wage requirements,” Sweeney’s letter read in part. “The life and safety of millions of people every year rests in the hands of the crew of these ferries. Safety suffers when workers can’t speak out for fear of retaliation, when they can’t negotiate to ensure reasonable crew levels and working hours, when laws are trampled and collective bargaining is disregarded.”
IBU San Francisco Regional Director Marina Secchitano placed the workers’ situation in the current political atmosphere.
“The Bush administration just couldn’t resist sticking it to both the City of San Francisco and Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi,” she said. “And the icing on the cake was to use the National Park Service to bring its union-busting agenda to the San Francisco waterfront from an administration that could care less about parks, the environment or honest working folks.”
San Francisco hotel workers Local 2 President Mike Casey thanked the ILWU for all the solidarity and support given his people during their long union organizing fights in town.
“We’re all looking forward to the day when Hornblower sends a one-way trip to Alcatraz for all the corporate criminals who have stolen the jobs and legacy of the women and men who have built this waterfront,” Casey said.
Also speaking at the rally and representing their unions were California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski, Teamsters International Vice President Chuck Mack, National MMP President Steve Diderot, MMP California Branch Agent Captain Ray Shipway, Sailors’ Union of the Pacific President Gunnar Lundeberg, ILWU longshore Local 10 President David Gonzales, ILWU clerks’ Local 34 President Richard Cavalli, ILWU warehouse Local 6 Secretary-Treasurer Fred Pecker, San Francisco Building Trades Secretary-Treasurer Mike Theriault, Airline Mechanics Fraternal Assn. Local 9 President Joe Prisco and many more.
