WASH: Taft-Hartley Act. (ORDERED)

TBO ^ | 10/8/02

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Bush decided to order the Justice Department to seek the injunction after board of inquiry hand-picked by the White House reported that the two-week-old labor standoff has no chance of ending soon, said two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The board's brief report does not go into detail about the economic and national security impact of the shutdown, but it does hold out little hope for a resolution of the conflict, said one of the sources.

[A CA Guy]

I know of a clerk who makes near $200K. A clerk is abouve the dock worker in the same union. If they work a shift that pays time and a half they can easily earn 280K.

[steveegg]

Don't confuse the chip-makers and programmers with the manual laborers who stick 107 plastic keys onto a spongy plastic sheet, lay that on top of a PCB, solder a couple of wires to it, and slap a case around it (the latter group is the one that makes the $1/day).

The only reason why it's happening now (rather than 9 years ago when it might have saved a couple of American jobs) is that the DNC decided that the economy needed another push toward the cliff.

[Roscoe]

The ILWA has been claiming that since it was a lockout by the evil port owners, all they want to do is get back to work. So now Bush is granting their wishes. Yet watch how the Dems howl about Bush being anti-union.

Without even blinking.

[Paleo Conservative]

Surprisingly enough...Feinstein supports this and has publicly said so.

It must kill Daschle that President Bush always gets a crowd of DemocRAT senators to support just about everything he does.

[steveegg]

The ILWA has been claiming that since it was a lockout by the evil port owners, all they want to do is get back to work.

Which work schedule is that; the 100% work that they're SUPPOSED to be doing or the 40% work that they had been doing while collecting their 100% paycheck with no fear of termination?

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Dockworkers Say Bush Busting Their Union
The Milwaukee Channel

...Bush, in deciding to intervene, was reacting to escalating pressure from retailers, manufacturers and other business groups dependent on Pacific Rim trade.

With more than 200 cargo ships stranded at the West Coast's 29 ports, immobilizing both imports and exports, losses to the national economy have been estimated at $1 billion to $2 billion a day, Bush's action would force the Pacific Maritime Association to end its shutdown of the ports for an 80-day cooling-off period. The PMA, which represents shippers and terminal operators, ordered the lockout in response to what it said were slowdowns by port workers that amounted to strike action in all but name.

Still, the president's intervention is being viewed as a blow against the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents the 10,500 workers involved in the labor dispute.

"This is the wrong decision," said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka. "The federal government has tipped the balance of power heavily in the employer's favor."

Federal mediation efforts aimed at promoting a new labor contract between the PMA and the ILWU began last week but collapsed late Sunday night.

The board of inquiry expected to report to Bush today consists of former Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Brock of Tennessee, who is serving as chairman; Patrick Hardin, a University of Tennessee law professor; and Dennis Nolan, a University of South Carolina law professor.

They are in San Francisco, where most of the abortive labor negotiations have been taking place, and were taking testimony from the two sides late Monday.

James Spinosa, president of the ILWU, and other union officials said they would resist any order to resume work at full speed.

"We're going to continue to 'work safe,'" Spinosa, using a phrase associated with work slowdowns, said in remarks reported by The Times.

"Yeah, I guess it is a slow-up," he said. "That's the way we're going to work."

But if a court injunction is granted, a federal judge would not tolerate such slowdowns, countered PMA President Joseph Miniace.

Miniace said the offer made to union negotiators Sunday night "would have made them the envy of every blue-collar worker in America." The proposal included wages topping $100,000 a year in all categories, full health-care coverage and a pension averaging $50,000 per year.

In exchange for the introduction of new technology, the PMA also guaranteed full employment for life to all current union members and said any new clerk jobs created by the technology would be part of the union's jurisdiction.

"We gave the union the opportunity to get the ports up and running last night without government intervention," Miniace said. "We made it clear we would be willing to make some changes. We would have the federal mediator to help us. But they rejected that offer."

Even if the ports reopen today, shipping industry officials told The Times that it would take four to six weeks to eliminate the cargo backlog.

[Roscoe]

Dockworkers Say Bush Busting Their Union

Incredibly two-faced, aren't they?

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

How do you mean?

[Roscoe]

I like the way Diddle E. Squat put it:

"The ILWA has been claiming that since it was a lockout by the evil port owners, all they want to do is get back to work. So now Bush is granting their wishes. Yet watch how the Dems howl about Bush being anti-union."

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Read this.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Bush asks judge to open ports
Rex Nutting, CBS.MarketWatch

"The crisis in our western ports is hurting the economy, it is hurting the security of our country, and the federal government must act," Bush said. He ordered Attorney General John Ashcroft to seek an injunction from the federal court in San Francisco.

If granted, the court's injunction would give shippers and longshoremen an 80-day cooling-off period in which to negotiate a settlement. The current contract expired on July 1.

It was the first request to use the Taft-Hartley Act's emergency powers since 1978. It's the first time in the 56-year history of the law that it's been used against a lockout by management, rather than a strike by workers. Read more about the act...

[Roscoe]

Our President could probably gain political advantage by letting the docks stand idle at the expense of our nation's economy.

He's made of better stuff than the Democrats.

[hchutch]

The point is, as a practical matter, we can't get the corporate tax elimination AND the regulatory reforms that we need passed unless we can get solid control of the House and Senate - the unions are tight with the Dems, and put a LOT of time and effort into electing them. Heck, the labor law reforms we need passed will be practically impossible to get.

The problem with Buchanan's protectionist approach is that it is merely a band-aid for an open fracture. The real solution is a lot tougher and messier, but it has to be done. We have to build a coalition of voters that can give us the congressional majorities and the Electoral College majority we will need to get the reform program passed.

The only question left is how we achieve that, and the way we do that is by getting enough votes to hold the House, Senate, and Presidency. And to hold them for as long as it takes to make these changes, AND to get the American people to see that those changes are not the end of the world.

Once that is done, it won't matter that we believe in free trade - because companies will look at the U.S., see that they don't have to pay a CENT in corporate taxes, they won't have to deal with regulations that cost a ton of money and bring back nothing, and that dealing with the labor unions does not mean you get taken to the cleaners - they'll head over here ASAP, and they'll come here and employ American workers.

That's the best way to ensure our economic and national security, not through protective tariffs that could only cause trade wars.

[hchutch]

Maybe someone at the Department of Labor should see if the union is negotiating in bad faith. Aren't there penalties for that?

[imperator007]

We just pay the farmers not to grow. What else is new?

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

What's there to be gained by pursuing it?

[SR71A]

management is trying to break the union by changing the nature of the work performed from manual labor to technologically skilled labor. That by itself isn't bad, and the union has no objection. The problem is that management wants the new jobs created to be non-union jobs.

Putting it more clearly, management wants to call them "skilled labor" and fill them with cheap H1-B labor.

[hchutch]

If the unions are doing a "slow-up", that's still costing the economy. There is the old saying "An honest day's work for an honest day's pay."

Now, a slow-up could mess up the Christmas season. Again, "I'm going to do what I can to ensure that this does not prevent children from getting their Christmas presents." If Bush keeps it along those lines, the union will look like a big grinch.

And nobody likes a grinch that tries to steal Christmas from kids.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Just as the rational portion of America woke-up to Clinton, what makes you believe the same won't be the case with the union workers? And what good would it have done Bush to have taken legal action against Clinton?

[hchutch]

The thing is, we can make it go faster for the rational portion of the U.S. population and possibly even pick off some of the IRRATIONAL portion of the U.S. population.

Again, it's a matter of two, maybe three, soundbites that are repeated over and over again:

"I asked for an order order to trigger the cooling-off period so that there would be no disruption of Christmas presents for children."

"I don't like to intervene in a labor dispute, but this was starting to hurt the whole country: Farmers in Missouri, South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota, small businessmen across the country, and even people trying to get Christmas presents for their children."

"I would certainly hope that during the cooling-off period, that those working will give an honest days's work, and that the PMA will provide an honest day's pay."

The key is to put the Dems in the box, and not us.