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Union Busting at the Port of Tacoma

Picket Line Was Called On On Nov. 7th 2007 a picket line was called to push the administration of Maersk (headquarters in Tacoma) to allow workers to join the union of their choice instead of the company union that managers have imposed on them. An arbitrator called by the longshoremens' union (ILWU) and management decided whether the picket line Jobs With Justice staged was safe to cross. The arbitrator deemed it unsafe and required management to compensate the longshore workers for not crossing the line. Jobs With Justice organized the picket, Tacoma SDS and other community members who heard word-of-mouth about the picket went to the port to show solidarity. Maersk is the largest shipping company in the world, JWJ said. Its North American headquarters are located in Tacoma. The workers are not granted basic needs that other union workers are, such as a living wage. Workers are forced to join the company union which acts as an obstacle to them. Maersk has tried to convince workers that the company union is a good union, and that other unions are dangerous. The workers are not convinced. They voted to change the company union, and Maersk is unwilling to do that at this time. Tacoma P.D. singled out Tacoma SDS members and asked for identification and phone numbers. There were no physical confrontations, but our group felt it was unfair that officers would single out SDS without any reasonable suspicion. We told them we would not consent to any of their questions or searches. Officer Darlington said the port has been the site of conspiracies to conduct terrorism. "People ride jetskis next to tankers and then they speed off in the other direction," he said. We were not convinced that this warranted suspicion towards Tacoma SDS. ***Earlier we published an account of this protest that we wish to clarify. The Jobs with Justice (JwJ) port protest was a community solidarity picket not a wildcat strike. JwJ is a community coalition that includes many community organizations as well as unions. Solidarity picketers did not include Port of Tacoma workers and JwJ did not call for and is not calling for a strike of any workers. Securitas is the contractor that Maersk hired to employ the Maersk Terminal guards who are organizing to form a union. The company union has a different name than Securitas. The arbitrator is an independent "neutral" selected jointly by management and union leaders and is not from the Longshoremens' union (ILWU). Mark Jensen from UFPPC wrote, Maersk began operations at the Port of Tacoma in 1985, and completed a major port extension in 2002, finishing the Port of Tacoma's largest terminal before the Iraq war. Maersk Line Ltd. contracts with the Department of Defense Military Sealift Command to operate and manage a number of military vessels, and has approximately double the volume of its business with the U.S. Government since Sept. 11, 2001, undertaking one third of the shipping of all U.S. military equipment to Iraq in preparation of the March 2003 invasion and earning more than $1 billion in sales through 2006, according to a CorpWatch Where's  George Tacoma, WA - March 26, 2008 Share This Story Del.icio.us Digg Google Newsvine Tacoma port terminal security group, guards at odds over union Workers who protect Tacoma port terminal want to join longshore union KELLY KEARSLEY; kelly.kearsley@thenewstribune.com Published: March 26th, 2008 01:00 AM | Updated: March 26th, 2008 07:37 AM A Tacoma Tideflats security company and its security guards are at odds over whether the guards can join the longshore union. Securitas Security Services faces charges of unfair labor practices from the National Labor Relations Board after employees said they were threatened with losing their jobs if they supported joining the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents 60,000 dock and warehouse workers on the West Coast, or testified against the company at labor hearings. And one security guard says he was fired for promoting the longshore union at work. Securitas – which calls itself the world’s largest security company – provides security at the APM Terminal on the Sitcum Waterway. That terminal serves Maersk and Horizon shipping lines. "Workers there who are security guards have been fighting to be in the ILWU since last summer," Jon Brier, a longshore labor organizer in Seattle, said Monday. "They got together because of intolerable wages and working conditions." Securitas denies the NLRB complaint and says it’s being harassed by the union. "We believe (the complaint) is without merit, and we intend to take every legal action to defend ourselves," said Gui Thomas, Securitas’ vice president of labor relations. "Because we won’t recognize (the longshore union), they are harassing us with frivolous unfair-labor practice charges." Up until last summer the two dozen or so security guards employed by Securitas were represented by the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America union, according to the NLRB complaint. The employees voted out of that union and sought to join the ILWU Local 28, which includes security guards employed by the Port of Tacoma and guards at the Port of Portland. But the employees’ union membership now is in limbo. Richard Ahearn, NLRB regional director in Seattle, said there is an NLRB provision that prohibits the agency from certifying a union of security guards if it includes members that aren’t guards. But Ahearn noted that employers can voluntarily recognize such a union. And while Securitas’ guards elsewhere are unionized, Thomas said Securitas doesn’t want its employees joining a mixed union – such as the longshore, which represents guards and nonguards – because action of the whole union could affect the guards. For example, if the longshore union went on strike, then – in this case – the port would be left unguarded, Thomas said. "We’ll recognize any union certified by the National Labor Relations Board," Thomas said. Ahearn said that the federal agency filed its complaint against Securitas in February after NLRB staff investigated the allegations of unfair labor practices. Anybody can file a charge, but a complaint from the NLRB means the agency has determined there’s merit to the alleged violations, Ahearn said. According to the NLRB complaint, Securitas managers: • Threatened employees that they would be out of a job the next day if they voted out of the security and police professionals union. • Threatened an employee that if he testified at a NLRB hearing he would lose his job. • Threatened that if the employees supported the union, Securitas would cease its operations at APM Terminals. Jack Craig, APM Terminal manager, said Tuesday that the terminal operating company isn’t involved with Securitas’ labor discussions. "Our position is that it’s between them and their guards," he said. A hearing on the complaint is scheduled for April 29. Ahearn said the agency also is investigating additional charges against the company. One comes from Tacoma resident George Twiggs, a Securitas security guard until Valentine’s Day, when Twiggs said he was fired for handing out union fliers and posting one at his work station that read "Welcome to ILWU country, your new union." Thomas declined to comment on Twiggs’ case. But he said the company "has not and would not" discipline anyone or take action against anyone for union beliefs and affiliations. "We do require all people to follow all security rules and regulations, and any employee who doesn’t will face disciplinary action," he said. Brier said Securitas guards want better wages, improved working conditions and more affordable health care. Twiggs said he was making about $11.50 an hour as a Securitas guard. "The wages here are the lowest, lower than a lot of other terminals," he said. Brier said guards doing similar work in California earn about $24 per hour. Thomas, with Securitas, declined to comment on benefits and said that $24 per hour isn’t realistic for the company. Kelly Kearsley: 253-597-8573 blogs.thenewstribune.com/business In More  News By David A. Utter - Fri, 02/01/2008 - 8:06am. $44.6 billion in cash & stock on the table The world's top software company could boost its online presence dramatically if Yahoo accepts a $44.6 billion bid to be purchased. Microsoft has offered Yahoo shareholders a 62 percent premium on their shares to sell the company. Yahoo's latest disappointing earnings announcement helped to depress the stock price, making it a renewed target for a takeover. "We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement. With online advertising projected to grow to $80 billion by 2010, Microsoft can grab a larger slice of that pie if it can pull in Yahoo, which ranks as the world's heaviest trafficked web property. In their proposal letter, Microsoft said, "Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft’s closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. "We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!’s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years," the letter said. In the letter, Ballmer noted how a February 2007 proposal to acquire Yahoo had been rebuffed by the board, as they believed in the "potential upside" of a management strategy that included the debut of the reworked search advertising product, dubbed Project Panama. "A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved," said Ballmer. He has a solution for that situation. $44.6 billion solutions, approximately. Assessing The Microsoft/Yahoo Aftershock   By Jason Lee Miller - Fri, 02/01/2008 - 5:04pm. It may have just been a truck going by At the end of this day we're left with a nail-biter. Chances are we'll know who won Super Bowl LXII, and who will be the Presidential nominees* before we know if Yahoo accepts Microsoft's dizzying offer. But that's all it is: an offer. In fact, Yahoo might say no. According to one source, at least, Microsoft made the offer quietly after Yahoo's earnings report came out earlier this week. And Yahoo said no then. Well, CEO Jerry Yang said no. When Lancelot – I mean Microsoft – didn't receive an answer, he went public with the offer, and Yahoo execs start scrambling. Just so it's clear: Microsoft goes public so everybody hears about it, buzzes about it, dreams about it. More importantly, disgruntled Yahoo shareholders hear about it, see it as their golden ticket. Yang and company have little choice but to accept**. The truth is Microsoft has little to offer Yahoo but money – a way out of a hole in exchange for all that beautiful Web presence. Calling Microsoft Lancelot is too nice. How about Gaston? So, in addition to a nail-biter and a kind of please-be-my-girlfriend-or-else offer, we're also left with the tech-world equivalent of wondering how good looking Brad and Angelina's baby is going to be. Wait, I have more metaphors to mix. It's like devising a fantasy football team, too. The point is, after Microsoft's embarrassing public display of affection, everybody may be disappointed. But that's not going to keep us from fantasizing about what that magical union really means – you know, in world where magical unions and perfect teams exist. So here goes. It's not just about search Search is only a part of it, a third of it maybe, at most, depending on if you're getting your numbers from Hitwise or Comscore. Yahoo gave up a long time ago on catching or beating Google at search. It's a good thing, too, because they'd look just as silly as Microsoft looks, flexing all that muscle, throwing all that money around, and boasting all the time just capture 7% of the market and falling. That "flagship" engine they called Live Search – the one developed with the help of Chinese researchers with mad algorithmic skills – brings in about 1.6% of search. Adding Yahoo's 20% helps Microsoft's search share, but doesn't come close to shaving off Google's dominant two-thirds. But putting their heads and assets together helps in the display advertising segment, and with any luck eventually leads to taking some of that search advertising money – of which Google controls 77% – away from Google via an expansive ad network.   Maybe there'll be some search "synergy" going on, but neither have been able to knock off Google so far, and there's no reason for that to change. A quarter or a third of the search market, though, is a nice consolation prize. What will be interesting is watching Microsoft decide what to do with all those search brands. It'll have MSN, Live, and Yahoo. It'd be foolish to get rid of the Yahoo brand or to juggle three of them. One or two have to go and I think you know which. And if one of them goes, then a portal could go with it. That's perhaps the biggest challenge: integrating the overlapping brands. MSN, Yahoo, Auto, Finance, Games, Maps, Messengers, Widgets, Mobile, Music…Right Media, aQuantive…the list goes on and on to the point you've got an administrative mess. For every overlapping brand, they'll have to decide to keep, throw out, or mash together. Now the good news $44 billion buys Microsoft a lot of Web dominance. A lot. Here's what they get in terms of market share, according to Hitwise (some numbers rounded): 15.6% combined share of Internet visits (twice Google's) 28% of search (32% if you're asking Comscore) 87% of portal front pages 83% of web-based email services (compared to Gmail's 5.5%) 12% of online news and media 39% of business information content Yahoo adds 35% of the Maps/Local sector (to compete with Google's 50%) 10% of online shopping directories Flickr gives Microsoft 12% of the photo market Other numbers Yacrosoft/Microhoo, whatever you call it, will reach 600 million pairs of eyeballs. Together they will handle 3.1 billion searches per month (Google, 5.6 billion) Combined $65 billion in revenue (Google, $16.6 billion) Combined $50.3 billion in gross profits, $17.6 billion net (Google, $9.9 billion, $4.2 billion) Combined 90,000 employees (Google, 16,805)