[Iww-news] Supporters Join ILWU On Docks Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 16:59:59 -0700 http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/4202338.htmPosted on Thu, Oct. 03, 2002Small break in port impasseMEDIATOR, RIVALS TO MEET TODAYBy Jennifer BjorhusMercury NewsBitterly divided port workers and shipping-line executives agreed to go back to the table today with a federal mediator at a secret location, but it could be days before they reach an agreement that enables ships idling off the West Coast's 29 ports to deliver the cargo essential to America's business.``We hope this signals a breakthrough,'' said Tom Edwards, Northern California manager for the Pacific Maritime Association, in a statement Wednesday.But neither side shows signs of budging on the technology-job issues that so deeply divide them.The lockout has halted vehicle assembly lines in Fremont, stalled hundreds of truckers and stranded billions of dollars of cargo -- including grapes, Apple Computer components, Fisher-Price toys, Blue Diamond almonds, Nike sneakers and steaks -- at ports and on ships.The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents 79 ocean ship lines and marine terminal operators, shut down all 29 West Coast ports Friday, claiming port workers were intentionally slowing down. Although they reopened for a short time Sunday, the ports remain closed. They handle one-third of the nation's imports and exports. Experts estimate the cost of the shutdown at more than $1 billion a day.Global economy, meet the waterfront.The heart of the dispute is who controls the new port jobs that come with installing centralized new logistics systems at terminals to improve operations. That includes software to manipulate shipping data from around the world, optical technology to scan containers, global positioning satellites to track containers and software to dispatch cranes.The companies want unfettered, centralized logistics systems so they can better meter and control the ever-expanding flow of equipment and cargo inside ports. The jobs are currently performed by powerful union clerks.Fighting against eroding union membership, port workers want a written agreement that Pacific Maritime Association members won't shift the new technology port jobs to non-union workers in cheaper locales. The union wants jurisdiction over those jobs. The PMA doesn't want to give the union blanket jurisdiction over jobs that haven't yet been defined and might not be the types of jobs that have historically been union-covered.``We've been down here for years. Why should we let someone else come in and take away our jobs?'' said a 40-year-old Oakland dockworker among those gathered around an oil drum Wednesday outside the dock gates in Oakland. Pickets were dwarfed by stacks of blue, orange and red shipping containers that had nowhere to go.The ports are a decidedly Old World place to glimpse a key 21st-century labor issue, experts say. But the dispute crippling some businesses here is one of the most pointed battles yet over farming out, or ``outsourcing,'' of information-technology jobs to contractors either in the United States or overseas. Such outsourcing has become a common practice among Silicon Valley tech companies and a growing trend nationwide.While some of the technology that the terminal operators and ocean carriers want to adopt, such as optical scanners for containers, would be used right on the docks, much of the tech work could be performed outside California, Oregon or Washington.``The issue running through this dispute which is so associated with container ships and cranes and hooks is the same issue that runs through the outsourcing of IT in many other industries,'' said Harley Shaiken, a University of California-Berkeley professor specializing in labor in the global economy. ``That's what's so fascinating about this. This is a dispute about how IT is handled.''Some watchers argue that it's a losing battle.``I think they're probably too little, too late in terms of their ability to stop the process,'' said Los Angeles employment attorney Arthur Silbergeld. ``I don't think that companies outsourcing IT work are going to stop doing it. Fighting globalization is, I think, foolhardy.''But Bay Area members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, which represents 10,500 port workers up and down the coast, say they're settling in for the long fight. You can't give up jurisdiction like that, said port workers picketing at the Port of Oakland Wednesday.``We're in a battle,'' said Pamela Romez, a 42-year-old American Canyon resident whose father, also a longshore worker, was killed on the docks in a crane accident. Romez said the port workers feel bad that the lockout has blocked the delivery of auto parts and thus thrown workers off the truck assembly line at the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont. But two NUMMI workers at the port picket lines expressed their support.``We face the same problem of outsourcing,'' said Carolyn Lund, a United Auto Workers trustee who operates a plastic-parts machine at NUMMI. ``Our members could understand we have to stand together.''That doesn't make things any easier, however, on Richard Coyle.Coyle, a principal at Devine & Peters Intermodal, a Sacramento-based trucking company that hauls in and out of the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, has had to park 150 trucks and furlough nearly 200 employees.``They're either burning vacation time or it's time off with no pay,'' Coyle said.The company hauls inbound components for Apple's plant in Elk Grove and outbound almonds for Blue Diamond. Neither of the loads is going anywhere.Coyle said he's worried that when the two sides finally reach an agreement that shipping will be a nightmare.``When it resumes, it's going to be a coagulated mess on the waterfront,'' Coyle said. ``It's amazing, the domino effect that people don't realize.''