As a result of the strike, British Columbia shut down its ports fully, which meant locking out around 7500 other ILWU members from their jobs at the ports and was estimated to cost around $800 million Canadian dollars ($576 million U.S.) per day.

The Local 514 members have been working with no contract since 2023. Two major issues in negotiations have been the threat of automation at the ports, which costs many longshoremen their jobs, as well as fighting for a secure retirement. After negotiations failed to reach a deal that addressed their concerns, the longshoremen voted by 99% to authorize and began their strike on November 4.

Earlier in 2024, Longshoremen members on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts struck in September over similar issues – automation and for significant pay increases. That strike resulted in a partial tentative agreement that would see a $24 per hour pay increase over the length of their contract. However, the East and Gulf coast workers did not reach an agreement around automation. The pay increases are dependent on reaching an overall deal.

On November 12, the ninth day of the strike in British Columbia, the Canadian government announced it will take away the workers’ right to decide for themselves whether to work or continue the strike. It ordered the port reopened and forced both sides into binding arbitration to settle the contract. Arbitration often ends with arbitrators settling deals that are more favorable to management than what the workers would be willing to settle for.

On October 31, around 1200 Longshoremen in Montreal, Canada began a strike, and on November 11 were similarly locked out as part of a strike there. The government order also reopens those ports and forces the Montreal workers into arbitration along with the British Columbia workers.

In 2023, Canada’s other Longshoremen locals settled deals after a 13-day strike. The 13-day strike came after the previous contract had similarly been dealt with by the Canadian government, leaving longshoremen dissatisfied and ready to build towards their 2023 strike.

The ILWU says it plans to fight the order in court. What happens next remains to be seen.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #Canada #Labor #ILWU #Strike #Longshoremen

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following article from Workers World.

Mobilize! That is the way the San Francisco Labor Council is answering the Pacific Maritime Association’s attack on the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10. In a unanimous resolution, the SFLC called for mass action at the PMA’s San Francisco headquarters on April 25 and established a broad defense committee for the union and its members.

The PMA is seeking to punish ILWU Local 10 for its members’ rank-and-file job action on April 4. The AFL-CIO had called for a National Day of Action on that date in support of Wisconsin workers. ILWU Local 10 volunteered not to go to work. Without their labor power, nothing moved for 24 hours in the ports of San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.

Intimidation won’t work

ILWU Local 10’s job action is part of a bigger fight for all workers, and it’s an important issue for the labor movement. By dragging this strong union before an arbitrator and a federal court judge, the PMA is trying to send a message to all workers to stay in line.

The PMA says that it is OK to have rallies, demonstrations and prayer vigils. It is OK to lobby, recall and vote. The PMA even told the union local that it is OK to shut down ports, but that type of action must be planned with them in order to suit the bosses.

The wheels of capitalism routinely roll on, squeezing the workers and unemployed even harder to make up for the bosses’ losses from the global capitalist economic collapse. However, when the pain of the working class results in a united job action that pinches the profit stream, it really gets attention.

ILWU Local 10 opened up a second front in solidarity with Wisconsin workers, and California’s labor movement is saying that the resulting intimidation by the bosses won’t work and is taking action to prove it, starting on April 25.

Everyone can defend ILWU Local 10

As a first step for workers beyond California’s Bay Area, the Bail Out the People Movement began an online letter campaign to PMA president and CEO, James C. McKenna. It demands that the “PMA drop all retaliatory actions including its suit against ILWU Local 10 and its members for exercising their right to show support for Wisconsin’s public workers and to commemorate Rev. Dr. King Jr.’s assassination [on] the AFL-CIO’s National Day of Action on April 4.

“We commend the brave longshore workers who showed the way by acting with conscience on April 4. We believe that ‘An injury to one is an injury to all!’” BOPM encourages everyone to sign on to this appeal at www.bailoutpeople.org/ilwu.shtml.

Additionally, they ask that community members, students and other activists turn that letter into a petition and take it to protests against school closings and budget cuts. They ask union members to take the SFLC resolution to union meetings, and supporters to take it to their churches, block clubs or other organizations and ask for a letter of support to stand with ILWU Local 10 on April 25. (See Resolutions at sflaborcouncil.org)

PMA: Union buster

Although the anti-working-class offensive focuses on public workers in Wisconsin, Michigan and other states, the rights of every worker — and all union and broader social benefits for the working class — are in the bosses and bankers’ cross hairs right now.

On April 12 ILWU members and supporters occupied the PMA office in Oakland, Calif., for several hours. They held a sit-in in the boardroom to highlight the PMA’s refusal to negotiate with the union. That bosses’ association aims to destroy the solidarity of the coast-wide contract in order to weaken the West Coast dockworkers’ union. According to the Labor Video Project, the PMA even brought nonunion crews into the San Diego port as part of their anti-union campaign.

On April 25 at 11 a.m. join the mass action to support ILWU Local 10 at the PMA San Francisco headquarters at 555 Market St.

#SanFranciscoCA #PacificMaritimeAssociation #Wisconsin #ILWU #ILWULocal10 #SanFranciscoLaborCouncil #InternationalLongshoreAndWarehouseUnion

Oakland, CA – The power of workers to bring production to a halt was on dramatic display April 4, when longshore workers of ILWU Local 10 shut down the ports of Oakland and San Francisco for 24 hours, in solidarity with the heroic struggles in Wisconsin.

The big container port of Oakland was deader than a doornail Monday at 6:00 a.m. I saw a long snake-line of trucks bearing shipping containers idled on the roadway. The shipping cranes were all “standing at attention” – i.e., not working any containers (These are same Port of Oakland cranes that gave George Lucas the idea for some of his “Star Wars” imagery).

The ILWU hiring hall was practically deserted at dispatch time for the night shift, leaving several hundred jobs unfilled. The dock workers stayed away, and no cargo was worked on any shift Monday in Oakland or San Francisco.

The rank-and-file-initiated shutdown was part of nationwide actions on April 4 to challenge the draconian budget cuts and union busting in Wisconsin and other states.

An “organized act of resistance” by rank-and-file dock workers

“This was a voluntary rank and file action – an organized act of resistance,” said Clarence Thomas, a dock worker and Local 10 executive board member.

“It is significant that the action by Local 10 was taken in solidarity with Wisconsin public sector workers who are facing the loss of collective bargaining,” Thomas said. He pointed out that April 4 is also the anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – who was killed in Memphis demanding collective bargaining for sanitation workers in that city.

“So we’ve come full circle,” he concluded. The Memphis public workers got their union, after a two-month strike. Now 40 years later their Wisconsin counterparts are threatened with losing theirs. But it is Wisconsin’s fierce resistance that is inspiring all of us today.”

It is not surprising that the 24-hour port work stoppage came out of International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 10, a racially diverse, predominantly African American local, and the home local of legendary labor leader Harry Bridges. Martin Luther King was named an honorary member of Local 10, six months before he was killed in 1968.

#OaklandCA #InternationalLongshoreWarehouseUnionILWU #DrMartinLutherKingJr #Wisconsin #PublicSectorUnions #April4 #InternationalLongshoreWarehouseUnionLocal10 #ILWU