They are pressuring the government and anyone else they can. What's wrong with Taft-Hartley being imposed in this emergency? Are you a union member? Do you make $80K to $150K per year plus bennies?
They are only pressuring the PMA. It is the PMA's responsibility to ensure the docks are open, not the ILWU's. If American Airlines shut its doors, because Goodyear tires raised their prices 30%, and then bitched about Goodyear ruining their business, we all would laugh. Management has one job - ensure the business runs. Sometimes you have to pay more for the components of your business to get just that.
The ones pressuring the gov't are the PMA and their customers. The ILWU wants nothing to do with the gov't.
What "emergency?" Does any disruption constitute an emergency? Is an emergency any condition the gov't does not like? A national emergency is when the fate of the nation hangs in the balance. If the govt' wants the ports open, have the PMA pay the ILWU what it takes to accomplish that, or replace the workers. After reading what you and many other FReepers posted, any stiff can do this job. So, deficate or get out of the outhouse. Tell me, is there a situation where pilots or longshoremen could withhold their services and it not be an emergency? If not, that makes them defacto gov't employees, and slaves of the state.
Does it make a difference if I am a union member? Do my arguments go for not if I am? Yes, I am.
You really are hung up on what unions make. IF they make $10K or $1M per year, the arguments would be the same. I think jealousy plays a big portion of what we all think of pilots, athletes, or the ILWU. Perhaps you should concentrate on what you make. I make less than the reported wages of the ILWU. I have a generous benefits package.
In 2000, I went to work for the highest paid airline in the world. I made $26k my first year on the job. My in-laws were living the good life in Silicon Valley, and disparaging my wife and me because I "work with my hands" and will never be "rich." No stock options, no 6 figure salary, no lavish parties, none of that. I was stupid for taking a union job. I made less than most Mexicans in the Valley.
Fast forward three years...While I still work for the same company, and do work with my hands, my salary has risen to $90k. My in-laws have lost 90% on their stock portfolios, their stock options, once worth $11M if you ask my sis-in-law, are worth less than the paper I wipe my anus with, bro is out of work, they will be upside-down on their $500k townhouse when interest rates tick up, sis-in-law went back to work. Guess what has not changed. I am being disparaged for having a union job, and not feeling their pain. We went to Hawaii 2x this year, bought a new van for cash, and are buying a new house within a few months. Our kids are in private school, and my stock portfolio is busting at the seams for shorting all the tech crap the in-laws owned and getting in on the ground floor of the precious metal boom of the early part of the year.
Moral to the story...some people will always be "wrong." There are those that believe they are so smart, that all of us in blue-collar jobs have a Constitutional duty to be subservient to those who "manage" things.
Things aren't that way. When times were good for the macro economy, they sucked for me. I didn't bitch, and quietly shorted all of the excess I saw. Now that times are "bad," I am doing pretty well. Again, I really don't want to hear all of the perma-bulls and self-reliant egomaniacs bitch about thier plight, nor do I want them to cast their green-eyes my way.
We all make choices. Some are good, and some are bad.