ILWU blasts $11.7 million settlement
Officials of the West Coast dockworkers' union are blasting a recent class-action lawsuit settlement that awards $11.7 million to 20,000 union members.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union's Coast Committee, in an Oct. 10 memo to members, said the Sept. 5 settlement is 'a direct attack on the ILWU dispatch halls.'
In the lawsuit brought against the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines and terminal operator employers, attorneys for four union member plaintiffs argued the dispatch halls are actually controlled by the PMA and thus, union members should get paid for time spent at the halls and going from the halls to work assignments.
The ILWU, which did not sanction or approve the four members' lawsuit, in the memo denied the plantiffs' claim.
The PMA posts available daily work at the various union locals' dispatch halls, which are run by the union. Union members seeking work check in at the halls each day to receive these assignments. The ILWU considers the dispatch halls to be 'referral centers,' and that members are not actually hired until they report to the various work locations.
The concern, said the memo, is that the settlement could be used by the employers to reclassify the dispatch halls as 'hiring halls' controlled by the PMA.
'The employers know that killing the hall will give them direct and total control over the workforce, and, at the same time, destroy the source of ILWU bargaining power,' the ILWU memo said.
The lawsuit may do more damage to the union's ability to control the halls 'than anything the employers have tried through the years,' the ILWU argued.
Union leadership also blasted the PMA for allegedly reneging on an agreement reached during the recent West Coast labor contract negotiations to defeat the lawsuit.
'The dispatch halls, which were established following the violent and deadly 1934 strike, are the rock on which the ILWU stands — remove the rock and the union falls and with it falls the best labor contract in the world,' the memo said.
It also told members that because the PMA wants the settlement — which awards each ILWU member about $1,000 — there is little the union can do to undo it.
'Taking your small share of the money will not change things; so you might as well claim your share,' the memo said.
However, the union leaders warned members the dispatch halls depend on the 'commitment of the membership to resist all efforts, from outside as well as from within our own ranks, that would harm our ' dispatch halls.'