So the AFL-CIO is not liberal enough for the Longshoremen?
In a nutshell that is correct.
Harry Bridges, a card carrying communist from Australia was actually head ILWU. The ILA, International Longshoreman’s union on the East and Gulf Coasts has been in relative terms fairly conservative and in the past endorsed Republicans.
The union of grainhandlers is still part of the AFL-CIO.
I grew up in the LA Harbor Area, and had countless friends who’s fathers were longshoremen...and I can tell you absolutely yes, that it is one of the WORST unions in the country. Makes the AFL-CIO look like pikers.
For starters, the docs employ about 4 times the people that are really needed to run the port. Not only will the ILWU not allow anything in the form of layoffs, they demand that any longshoreman’s son has a RIGHT to a job, and we’re talking starting $100k per year jobs here.
On top of that, like clockwork, they shut down the port every 3 years to demand raises. There are actually longshoremen that plan vacations for the month or so the port will be shut down, knowing that they are going to walk in to back pay for the time lost AND a fat raise when they return.
Finally, its become such a racket that children of longshoremen are often gang members because they barely attend high school. If you know you’ve got a guaranteed 6 figure job when you turn 18, what is the use of studying 11th grade history? So they hang out and party, and over the past 30 years the young gangsters have infested the waterfront.
This is setting up for a tragedy soon. There is a large port being built south of Tijuana, with a railhead into Kansas City. Once fully operational, ships and the owners of the docks can simply shift business south, and the port of LA will start to whither....and you will have thousands of uneducated, highly specialized unemployed with six figure lifestyles with no prospects...oh and a lot of them have criminal backgrounds. Aint that going to be sweet.
My guess is that this move is to allow them to “mend fences” with other long shore unions up and down the west coast, to try to coordinate a massive strike when the Tijuana docks come on line.
“So the AFL-CIO is not liberal enough for the Longshoremen?”
The same Longshoremen union in Long Beach that staged a 2-day strike because of the Iraq War. The same Iraq War that ended a year before. They’re most probably trying to money grab the union dues, that gets kicked up the AFL-CIO.