On the heels of the West Coast longshore union’s departure from the AFL-CIO, it appears the East Coast dockers may also be headed that way. “We had said for a while, if the ILWU left we probably would too,” said Ken Riley, a national vice president of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which represents dock workers on the East and Gulf coasts.
Riley said top ILA brass were still wrangling over the move via text messages as of Labor Day but were headed for the AFL-CIO’s convention in Los Angeles next week. Spokesman Jim McNamara said ILA leaders would meet with ILWU (Longshore and Warehouse Union) leaders this weekend, as well as AFL-CIO officials.From Labor Notes: ”Riley said he had been bringing resolutions to conventions for 12 years saying, ”if we can’t get the AFL-CIO to address raiding we ought to pull out. ”On neither coast were they willing to take any action,” he said, ”and now it’s really coming home to roost.” Photo shows ILA International Vice President Ken Riley, right, supporting ILWU International President Bob McEllrath, center, as Pres. McEllrath faces arrest for standing up for good jobs at EGT — a multinational grain company that employed Operating Engineers as replacement workers during a labor dispute with the ILWU in Longview, Washington.”
Both unions already had one foot out the federation’s door, angered by what they called its inattention to raiding among maritime unions. Last September they, together with three other unions, formed the Maritime Labor Alliance, independent of the AFL-CIO. And in July the ILA quit the AFL-CIO’s Maritime Trades Department.
The ILA charges the IUOE with the same. IUOE members boarded ships in the port of Charleston, South Carolina, to unload military cargo, McNamara said, work that had “been done for decades by ILA members.”
McNamara said any exit would first have to be approved by the ILA’s executive council.
Riley said, “It’s a matter of solidarity. We are two small unions, but because of what we control, we have a lot of power.”
