maybe they figure that one union siphoning money out of their pocket was enough...
Posted on 09/01/2013 6:48:21 PM PDT by carlo3b
Longshore Union Quits the AFL-CIO
In a surprise move, the 40,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union announced its disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO yesterday. The news comes just a week before the federation is set to hold its national convention in Los Angeles, the nation’s biggest port and an ILWU stronghold..
The ILWU, known for its militant traditions and progressive politics, has been drawn into turf wars with other unions in recent years—particularly in the grain export terminals of the Pacific Northwest, where longshore workers have been locked in a high-stakes battle over master contract standards since 2011. - See more at: http://www.labornotes.org/2013/08/longshore-union-quits-afl-cio#sthash.WUvgy2OU.5GNjJk01.dpuf
(Excerpt) Read more at labornotes.org ...
Communists fighting amongst themselves.
So the AFL-CIO is not liberal enough for the Longshoremen?
It's a fight between the Marxist and the Leninist.. I say let'em have at it.. :)
Pass the popcorn.
maybe they figure that one union siphoning money out of their pocket was enough...
The present union business model is unsustainable in a global marketplace. This infighting is simply an outcome of scarce work and an abundance of union workers.
The funny part is that union “leaders” seem to think economic forces don’t matter if you stand around with picket signs demanding business provide work for wages and work rules that will put them out of business. Business acquiesced for years because they could still make money, but those days are long gone.
In a nutshell that is correct.
Harry Bridges, a card carrying communist from Australia was actually head ILWU. The ILA, International Longshoreman’s union on the East and Gulf Coasts has been in relative terms fairly conservative and in the past endorsed Republicans.
The union of grainhandlers is still part of the AFL-CIO.
Interesting read. Some of those organizations, I’ve never heard of. Seems quite in disarray..
Kinda like syria, the sunni against the shitits with the alquada, hezbulah, crips and bloods all killing just to stay in good form. Go for it.
Secstate johnfnnkerry, will be right over with a couple of billion in aid money.
Or the Trotskyite vs the Stalinist.
I grew up in the LA Harbor Area, and had countless friends who’s fathers were longshoremen...and I can tell you absolutely yes, that it is one of the WORST unions in the country. Makes the AFL-CIO look like pikers.
For starters, the docs employ about 4 times the people that are really needed to run the port. Not only will the ILWU not allow anything in the form of layoffs, they demand that any longshoreman’s son has a RIGHT to a job, and we’re talking starting $100k per year jobs here.
On top of that, like clockwork, they shut down the port every 3 years to demand raises. There are actually longshoremen that plan vacations for the month or so the port will be shut down, knowing that they are going to walk in to back pay for the time lost AND a fat raise when they return.
Finally, its become such a racket that children of longshoremen are often gang members because they barely attend high school. If you know you’ve got a guaranteed 6 figure job when you turn 18, what is the use of studying 11th grade history? So they hang out and party, and over the past 30 years the young gangsters have infested the waterfront.
This is setting up for a tragedy soon. There is a large port being built south of Tijuana, with a railhead into Kansas City. Once fully operational, ships and the owners of the docks can simply shift business south, and the port of LA will start to whither....and you will have thousands of uneducated, highly specialized unemployed with six figure lifestyles with no prospects...oh and a lot of them have criminal backgrounds. Aint that going to be sweet.
My guess is that this move is to allow them to “mend fences” with other long shore unions up and down the west coast, to try to coordinate a massive strike when the Tijuana docks come on line.
You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contendeh. I coulda been a somebody.
I was living in Long Beach during one of those strikes. I’d ride my bike along the beach and look out onto the water and see those big ships just sitting out there, waiting to dock.
“Communists fighting amongst themselves.”
Who gets to be Stalin and who gets to be Trotsky ?
Good guess. My take is that either they do it before the Tijuana port can handle the volume or they'll lose.
Wow. That makes the UFCW I was in seem like cute fluffy kittens. At least they would stop trying to get your job back after the 3rd time getting caught stealing on camera.
Oh, my. Something’s bound to hit an oscillating device somewhere.
If you are talking about the Porto Colonet Project, that is on “Hold”, and likely dead-in-the-water.
The ILWU has always been “Stalinist” until recently. Harry Bridges, both an Australian Communist Party member and a Communist Party USA Central Committee member (1934, hattip to John Haynes and Harvey Klehr, “Labor History”, Summer 1994, Col. 35, BNo. 3, “Communists and the CIO: From the Soviet Archives”, pp. 442-446, specifically 444-446), was the Soviet asset running the ILWU until he retired in the 1980’s or so. He was followed by another Stalinist Jim Herman, and a few others.
Today’s ILWU leaders (re the past 15-20 years) are still militants but it is hard to find any CPUSA affiliation information on them other than supporting various protests by the CPUSA, WWP, etc.
On the other hand, the AFL-CIO was loaded with Marxists after George Meany retired and the Left under John Sweeney (an avowed socialist/marxist) took over, eliminated the anti-communist clause in its Constitution, and hired reds by the bushel (including Karen Nussbaum (9 to 5, Venceremos Brigade; Karen Ackerman, VB, DuBois Clubs, and reportedly the CPUSA’s later youth arm, the Young Workers Liberation League (YWLL), worked for the CPUSA created and dominated Local 1199 Drug & Hospital Workers Union, before becoming the Political Director of the AFLCIO).
The leader of the AFLCIO during the past 10-20 years in George Trumka, former head of the United Mineworkers Union, and a hardcore communist. Interestingly, he had a lot of affiliations with the Trotskyite “Socialist Workers Party” (SWP), from the 1970’s till it broke apart in the 1980’s.
I’m sure that he then switched to supporting fronts of the Trotskyite-turned-Stalinist “Workers World Party” (WWP), in their protests over Gulf War I, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan, among other causes.
Trumka is a megalomaniac and a veteran union thug (physical and otherwise). His weakness is that he pisses off both friend and foe alike. Perhaps the Left Coast guys are going to give him a run for the red money (i.e., control of the organized labor union movement in the US).
Let’s hope they destroy each other.
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