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As Stupid As It Gets: Longshoremen’s Union Protests U.S. Marines

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  August 20th, 2012 at 05:30 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Somehow, it seems that the folks at the International Longshoremen’s Association misunderstood Candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 statement: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

Since the target of the Longshoremen’s union protests is the U.S. Marines, according to this union press release, ‘misunderstood’ might actually be an understatement:

Union longshore workers from many Atlantic Coast District Ports are joining forces outside the United States Marine Barracks in Washington, DC to protest the loss of handling military cargo at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina.  Hundreds more members of the International Longshoremen’s Association are also picketing simultaneously at the Port of Charleston.

Both demonstrations in Washington and the Port of Charleston are to protest the US Marines allowing Portus Stevedoring Company, a Jacksonville-based company, to move its military cargo operation from Jacksonville, Florida to Charleston but bypassing the use of ILA workers in Charleston. The ILA learned that Portus intends to transport members of the International Union of Operating Engineers and, perhaps even non-union workers, aboard the vessel Lewis and Clark, and have these non-ILA members work the ship at Joint Base Charleston beginning on Monday.

For the past several months, International Vice President Kenneth Riley, ILA military consultant General Patrick Kelly and our ILA staff in Washington has been trying to resolve this issue with the International Union of Operating Engineers.  We have been in frequent contact with the leadership of the AFL-CIO, the Seafarers International Union and other AFL-CIO affiliates to support our campaign.

Following Monday’s demonstration, the ILA protesters in Washington will join their Sister and Brother ILA members for the remainder of the week at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina to protest near the Lewis and Clark vessel at Joint Base Charleston.

It should be noted that the union protests are not over the Marines actually using non-union labor, but of using labor from a different union.

Once again, AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka seems to be abrogating the federation’s responsibility of adjudicating jurisdictional disputes between AFL-CIO member unions.

____________________

“Truth isn’t mean. It’s truth.”
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com

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COMMENTS

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  • Ed Walk in NJ

    Last fall in Longview, WA the ILWU had a bitter labor dispute with the new EGT Grain Elevator. The bottom line in the dispute had nothing to due with wages but the number of “Union” jobs that EGT was willing to hire. EGT had spent over 200 million on the new elevator which featured alot of automation and the ILWU would not budge on the required number of workers. Ofcourse they wanted the same number of workers that worked at the other area elevators. So EGT went out and hired union labor from the operating engineers. This resulted in countless protests and blocking of trains as well as the dumping of grain from inbound trains. The even held some of the security guards hostage for a few hours during one of the protests. If this was a Tea Party group they would have been labeled “Terrorists”.

    Eventually the ILWU made the concessions and they were hired. You just got to love the luddite mentality of the Unions.

    The ILWU has been very aggressive in Unionizing non traditional workers within the maritime industry. Within the port of LA most of the off terminal booking clerks have been unionized. This has caused most of the container shiplines to move most of their workers away from the port areas within the US to avoid these same problems in other ports.

    My work sometimes requires me to visit some of these businesses in the LA area and it is a bit humorous when I walk into the office and the receptionist is usually a muscular man who should be slinging cargo. But he is there for only one reason and thats to keep the other “union” workers in line.

    • http://www.laborunionreport.com LaborUnionReport

      The ILWU is different from the ILA. In sum, the ILWU (West Coast) is the red-headed spawn of the ILA.

    • camurd

      For those that don’t know how this works let me shine a little light of knowledge your way. Let’s talk about the port of LA since I have direct knowledge of this port. You see at the port of LA they have been able to thug their way into contracts that guarantees that a certain number of union works will be hired every year, guarantees that every union worker will get paid for a full 8 hours, and I won’t even get into the pay but it is well over 6 figures. So here is what these contracts have done, there are 2 -3 times the number of required workers, so they work maybe 4 hours a day and get paid for the full 8 hours because their contract says so. Sounds like a great gig if you can get it, but all the cost for this is passed on to you and me, the consumer. You see the union guys spend the rest of their day at the nearby bar drinking and having a good time. If you don’t believe me just stop by any bar that is local to the port and you will see for yourself. I am there almost every day and it is like watching shift change, “did my 4 hours now give me a beer”. What a joke and now I go out of my way to buy non-union goods.

      The thug Unions will be and has been the down fall of the middle class and the country. The sooner we can get rid of the dinosaurs union the better off we will be, but I am sure the tugs will find another way into our lives.

      • funwithknives

        speechifying over the week-end?

        He’s seen as saying ‘Communism is our Future’ and aligning with Occupy, locally.
        Oh, and there’s a bunch about Wrecking Capitalism.

        Saw it on The Blaze This a m .
        Can you spell Mortifying, and Dumbstruck ?

        Where’s The TerrorFuzz when you need them?

        • http://www.laborunionreport.com LaborUnionReport

  • Kudzu

    #1- Possible corruption and abuse of the contract system that allows you to fly in people at “less cost” than to hire local.

    #2- The ILA protesting at other bases makes them look stupid and doesn’t actually do anything for them. That just shows they’re protesting the Marine Corps, not the hiring of out of state non-union workers.

    #3- I hope the Marines got a hell of a deal to where they can afford to fly in people, house them, and then fly them back all with working a ship.

    Which is why I’m curious about why they felt the need to fly someone in to do the job that is traditionally done by this union? Either something is going on with the ILA (possible) or some contract officer is getting some on the side (possible) or its such a cost-benefit to not hire local for his period (probable). And this might be the way of the future.

  • rtd741

    It was just this past Sunday morning, I lay in bed and watched “On the Waterfront” with Marlon Brando. I thought we got rid of union corruption back in the early ’50′s. What theheck’s going on!!!!!

  • gmhunt

    Not so long ago, not just the Marines, but the Military in general would have moved their own cargo.not hired a private company at all……All downsizing has created the need for the private sector to perform a lot of Military jobs. The protest is “dumb” mostly because the Marines do not do the hiring…..it is down by Government civilians.

    • arthurjake

      Traditionally lots of cargo has been hauled loaded and unloaded by people other than the military. Much the same thing happened in WW2. The Marine Corps and Navy said the heck with the longshoreman in Australia. While preparing for the Guadalcanal invasion the longshoreman couldn’t keep up with the demands. They were too worried about negotiating there contracts and going on strike. Loading ships for what was clearly going to be an offensive operation while Australia while still in great danger wasn’t cause enough to worry about anything other than themselves. They were more worried about break times and overtime than they were about the threat of Japan winning the war and occupying there country. The Marines in amazing Marine Corps fashion did the smart thing. They put there own to work loading the ships and posted armed guards to keep the union thugs away.

      I will say your right on the increased outsourcing. This started heavily under the Clinton administration. It got worse under the Bush Administration(although for good cause. With war in two different places this freed up soldiers for more combat related activities). It has gotten still worse under the Obama administration. With DOD civilian employees was well over 700,000 in 2010. With massive cuts in troop numbers being made they have been cut at much lower percentages. With massive cuts to the defense budget planned to take effect in January the DoD civilian employee force is projected not to be hit near as hard as there military counterparts. Now what the war is winding down soldiers can go back to mowing there own lawns and managing there own barracks.

  • RDCook

    Somehow, it seems that the folks at the International Longshoremen