Editorial: Dockworkers justified, Taft-Hartley biased

The United States economy may be losing one billion dollars per
day to a labor dispute between port owners and their workers, but
that doesn’t mean President Bush should force the laborers
back to work.

The Taft-Hartley Act gives the president the power to do so for
up to 80 days while negotiation sessions continue if the labor
dispute “imperils the national health or safety.” In
this case, there is a lot of money at stake, but health and safety
seem to be doing just fine.

The dockworkers, represented by the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union, want to have control over new clerical positions
created by management’s attempts to modernize the shipping
industry with new technologies. The Pacific Maritime Association,
which represents the shipping companies who employ the dockworkers,
want non-union clerical workers to fill these positions
instead.

Bush has not been helpful in the dispute thus far. In a plea
addressed to the locked-out dockworkers, Bush said through White
House spokesman Ari Fleishcher: “You’re hurting the
economy, you are hurting your fellow workers and unions in other
parts of the country whose jobs depend on the products you
ship.” Bush has also said both sides should “go back to
work and resolve the problems.”

But it’s not that simple.

The dockworkers understandably have to look out for their own
interests before the well-being of other workers or unions or even
the national economy. The money being lost is their only leverage
““ telling them to give it up is both unreasonable and
undemocratic.

The Taft-Hartley act favors employers by nature because it
negates workers’ primary power ““ the threat of a
strike. To press them into such a situation implies they are an
expendable portion of the shipping industry.

Their absence this week has proven otherwise.

The dockworkers’ demands, when compared with Bush’s
comments, are mundane. The chief issue isn’t money or working
conditions but the implementation of new technology. They simply
want to run the new machinery to be used at West Coast ports.
Seeing that they have run the ports for this long, having them do
so in a modernized version of the shipping process seems like a
logical solution.

The approach of the PMA, to hire non-union workers to fill these
positions instead, is surprisingly short-sighted. It wouldn’t
take long before those new workers began seeking unionization
themselves. Given the dockworkers’ bargaining powers, any
group working alongside them will undoubtedly seek similar
strengths.

Besides, technology will inevitably lead to a reduction in the
dockworkers’ pay, fewer job opportunities for these workers,
or both. Allowing some of the current workers ““ who these new
processes will displace ““ to step into the new clerical
positions is the least the PMA can offer its employees.

President Bush has displayed poor leadership thus far in helping
the two sides to an agreement and getting the national economy back
on track. It’s good that he hasn’t invoked the
Taft-Hartley act yet, but more is expected of him than not making a
poor decision. Instead of trying to guilt workers into heading back
to the docks by whining about the national economy, he should
address the real issue behind this lockout: corporate
America’s disregard and under-appreciation for blue-collar
workers.