Free Republic

OAKLAND -- Bay area longshoremen were up in arms Friday night when they were denied work at one of Oakland's cargo terminals. The cargo ship, the Zhen Hua 19, pulled into Oakland's Pier Seven and on board was tons of steel slated to be used for the new Bay Bridge. Caltrans decided not to hire the ILWU Local 10 longshoremen to unload the vessel, a decision that angered some local union members.

LOS ANGELES -- An arbitrator has ordered the union that represents dockworkers at West Coast ports to tell members they must report to work Thursday and not take the day off to protest U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. A wide enough walkout could cause a slowdown at West Coast ports -- the nation's major gateway for cargo from the Far East. Arbitrator John Kagel issued his decision today after holding a hearing by phone with the employers' group, Pacific Maritime Association, and International Longshore and Warehouse Union, according to a document outlining the ruling. The union previously asked...

The ILWU: Back to its Marxist Roots March 12, 2008 At a time when even Russia and China are rejecting their Marxist past, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union still plans on celebrating the birth of communism by taking “May Day” off. These are people, by the way, who earn six-figure incomes, generous benefits, and pensions for putting in fewer hours on the job than their dock-working comrades anywhere in the world. That measure of failed solidarity notwithstanding, the ILWU is also asking the AFL-CIO to join them in the work stoppage. Is it any wonder why many shippers are...

Members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union are proceeding with plans for a work stoppage at 29 West Coast ports on May 1 to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that union leadership has withdrawn its request to waterfront employers that they accommodate closure of the ports. Planning for the protest began in February when the Longshore Caucus, the highest decision-making body for the 25,000 members of the longshore division within the ILWU, overwhelmingly approved a resolution in support of a day of protest. According to its contract, the ILWU is entitled to schedule a...

Arriving in the Port of Oakland at 6 a.m. last Thursday, the grey-blue colossus auto carrier Century Highway No. 3 carries enough cars to fill all the parking lots surrounding the Giants stadium — a mere fraction of the average 368 million annual tons of autos, toys, and other goods moving through the 29 ports along America's Pacific coast. Could there be a force of man or nature powerful enough to interrupt this perpetual merchandise tsunami? Would you believe — San Francisco radical peaceniks? On May 1, the usually bustling ports along the West Coast will become still, as members...

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. In a February 22 letter to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, ILWU International president Robert McEllrath reported that at a recent coast-wide union meeting, "One of the resolutions adopted by caucus delegates called on longshore workers to stop work during the day shift on May 1, 2008 to...

The WGA announced Tuesday that the International Longshore Warehouse Union sent the hardest hit striking WGA members 60-pound holiday food baskets with frozen turkeys and other Thanksgiving fixings. ILWU member Chris Bradley said they were paid for by the rank-and-file. The WGA called the baskets "Capra-esque".

The federal government wants convicted union leader Gary Rodrigues held without bail pending sentencing, saying he poses a danger to federal prosecutors and to the community. In a motion filed Tuesday but unsealed yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Florence Nakakuni said that behavior and statements directed at the prosecution team by Rodrigues and his daughter Kauai police officer Shelly Rodrigues-Bonachita, on Nov. 19 after the jury returned with guilty verdicts "were perceived as threats." Those statements and a belief by Rodrigues' supporters that a federal prosecutor has a "personal vendetta" against Rodrigues are evidence of the threat he presents to the...

<p>Hawai'i's leading shipping company plans to boost Island cargo charges next year by what could be as much as 13 percent in some cases, imposing a new $200 fee to bring each container of goods into the Islands and another $100 to ship freight out.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — West Coast dockworkers and shipping companies reached a tentative six-year contract agreement early today, potentially ending a long, caustic labor dispute that closed the ports and prompted presidential intervention.</p> <p>Chief federal mediator Peter Hurtgen praised both sides, saying lead negotiators in San Francisco "demonstrated statesmenlike leadership, which made this agreement possible."</p>

The lag on the West Coast has brought a major slowdown in cargo movements to Hawaii, where merchants are used to clockwork-precision deliveries. After the ILWU went back to work, it was taking four or five days to get the labor they needed on the West Coast to work the ships; now it is more like 10 days, said a Matson Navigation Co. spokesman in San Francisco, Jeff Hull. The turnaround time for ships, normally two days, is dragging toward two weeks, he said. But there are still ships coming to Hawaii with freight, Hull said. Matson will have four...

<p>The Consumer, a CSX Lines ship loaded with food, paper products and other necessities of life on an isolated Pacific island is to depart Los Angeles and set sail for Hawai'i this morning, shipping officials said yesterday.</p> <p>Despite labor tensions and an ongoing lockout of union workers at West Coast harbors, an exemption granted the 50th state late Friday has opened the gates for at least a half-dozen ships to load up and head across the Pacific this week.</p>

<p>Hawai'i has received an exemption to the port shutdown that has paralyzed the West Coast, and dockworkers will begin loading ships with cargo bound for the Islands today.</p> <p>Yesterday's developments: • A federal mediator shuttled between representatives of dockworkers and management at a San Francisco hotel, with talks expected to go through the weekend.</p>

OAKLAND, Calif. — Shipping lines and the dockworkers union said yesterday that talks on a new contract have broken down, raising the possibility of labor disruptions at West Coast ports later this week. Each side gave different reasons for the impasse, but its effect is clear — as of last night, there will be no contract covering the dockworkers who handle the booming Pacific Rim trade at 29 major West Coast ports. The break means that the 10,500 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union can stage work slowdowns. If they do, the shipping lines that employ them say...