ILWU President Bob McEllrath was detained by police as longshore workers massed on railroad tracks to stop a shipment of grain to a non-ILWU terminal. Photo: Dawn DesBrisay.
Only a few days after Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa exhorted his followers to “take these son of a bitches out,” (referring to conservative politicians), the Longshoreman appeared to put legs to the rhetoric, only their target happened to be other union members!
On Thursday, hundreds of ILWU members invaded a new west coast grain terminal (in violation of a restraining order), pelting police officers with rocks and pepper spray, cutting brake lines, pushing a security vehicle into a ditch, and releasing about 10 tons of grain from rail hoppers onto the tracks. Ninteen members were arrested, including ILWU President Bob McEllrath. Over 500 protestors, some driving from over two and a half hours away, arrived to break down the gates, corraled the security guards to keep them from interfering, and continued on their rampage.
The Longshoreman used social media to organize the assault. “Call out the troops, we’re going on a road trip!” one union member wrote on the ILWU facebook page.
What has the Longshoremen’s dander up? The facility could not reach agreement with the ILWU, so it hired members of a competing union to work at the port. The ILWU seems to think that American businesses must be dictated to by unions, and consider any U.S. port their turf. McEllrath summed up the union position, “This constitutes an assault on over 80 years of longshore jurisdiction — an assault that could fundamentally change the dynamics of the relationship within the grain industry as a whole. It is critical to the Longshore Division that this does not happen.”
Hard times make for hard choices. The “Brotherhood of Opperating Engineers” was brought in to take over jobs held for 80 years by longshormen ILWU (International Longshoreman and wharehouse Union). The new Super Cranes are very much like the equipment the Opperating Engeneers use on construction sites. Protecting their jobs and their future, the Longshormen stood on the tracks, that the crains and trains ride on and of course the “Opperating Engeneers” would not role over them. The longshorment were arrested for “trespassing” and nothing more. The NLRB will be called upon to settle this dispute betwean Unions and the settlement could be a dual Union Presents on the docks. As far as Teamster President “Jimmy Hoffa” goes, he has no influence with these other two unions that are AFL-CIO based. His comments are for the working people to get the electorate to vote in 2012 for Labor friendly candidates.