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Los Angeles longshoremen locked out, threatened by armed thugs national |
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news report
 Thursday October 03, 2002 04:24 by Phuq Hedd
 Pacific Maritime Association brings thugs to negotiations The ILWU (International Longshore & Warehouse Union) which represents most of the labour at the huge Los Angeles port has been in a trade dispute with the bosses association (PMA) for many months now. The workers have been working without a contract for months. The PMA locked out the union and in their last meeting turned up with "bodyguards" that were armed in a manner visible to the union negotiation team. Los Angeles has a sordid history as an Open Shop where militarized industrial relations attracted investment from shipping speculators and led to cheap labour that was able to steal business from San Francisco. (Although LA started out with a fraction of the population and no harbour and no railways!). The brutal suppression of organised labour continued up until the late 60's. In later years succesful strikes by the mainly Latino farmworkers unions and the powerful ILWU clawed concessions from the employers. Now, with the encouragement of Bush the employers are trying to get tough again and use the excuse of new technology to lay off workers. Hopefully the ILWU will see a return of the international solidarity they displayed when they refused to unload ships turned away from the scab port of Liverpool. |
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Comments (1 of 1)
Jump To Comment: 1Exactly right! Dockworkers worldwide should walk off and shut down ALL the ports (especially if Shrub comes in with military scabs, as he has threatened to do) until the PMA(Pacific MAFIA Arseholes) backs off!