By John Showalter

The ILWU has yet another strong ally in a seat of union power. Since March 2006, Dave Freiboth, former President of the Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU), has served as the Executive Secretary of the King County Labor Council (KCLC), the AFL-CIO-affiliated central body of labor organizations in and around Seattle.

Prior to becoming executive secretary at the labor council, Freiboth served in various labor leadership positions for 20 years, including 12 years with the IBU, the Marine Division of the ILWU. He decided in fall 2005 not to run for IBU president again, and, at the time, his plan was to “go back to his boats and tools.” However, with a month to go in office, he got word that there was an opening at the KCLC office and was asked by co-workers he had worked in the maritime industry and other industries to step up.

“I had been the maritime trades representative to the Central Labor Council in Seattle for about seven years,” said Freiboth. “So I was involved already, and, in tune with local politics, ready to represent the Marine Division.”

In the years leading up to his labor council post, Freiboth worked closely with Seattle longshore Local 19 to frame their positions on local plans to build new infrastructure for port freight movement and on the heated debate over gentrification of port land.

In the latter case, Freiboth helped broker a compromise position whose funding is currently under discussion in the state legislature. These and other cases positioned Freiboth well to address longshore issues when he came into office at the labor council and it gives a big boost to longshore workers’ and labor’s positions when they sit down with Port of Seattle to know that Freiboth is representing them at the council.

Freiboth sees the labor council’s mission—to educate those in different sectors of government about labor’s struggles and to provide a central policy entity to project labor’s collective power—as directly benefiting the ILWU. Although, he cautions, labor must be committed and organized in these difficult political times.

“Just as solidarity is at the heart of the ILWU’s slogan ‘an injury to one is an injury to all,’ so must there also be a commitment to building broader support in the labor movement,” he said. “At times when workers are threatened in the Marine Division or the ILWU, the labor council plays a key role in galvanizing the resources of the labor movement.”

He adds that union members have a tendency to take unity for granted. Citing the disastrous Professional Air-Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike in 1981, he reminds that President Reagan’s busting of that union occurred because members did not see the warning signs, and did not consider the extent to which big money or a hostile administration could threaten their ability to maintain the balance of power.

 “[The ILWU’s slogan] is a wonderful motto, but when folks get into the cut-and-thrust of power plays with the bosses, it takes a lot of work to make sure the bosses aren’t working us against each other,” he said. “[The council’s] heavy lifting comes in maintaining that unity and projecting that power. It is a two-pronged attack: it’s the internal work of maintaining that unity through coalition-building and the external work of projecting that power.”

Freiboth says that the council’s efforts to maintain labor unity—despite the national Change-to-Win split of certain unions from the AFL-CIO in 2005—has already provided workers with several opportunities to emphasize their continued unity. When Korean Free Trade Agreement talks were held in Seattle last year, the council mobilized 1500 people from union locals to protest in the streets in solidarity with their Korean brothers and sisters and fight big businesses’ efforts to degrade labor standards globally.