Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Hard-hit LA ILWU longshoremen turn generosity inward

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dockworkers25-2009dec25,0,6245687,full.story

SHIPPING
Hard-hit longshoremen turn generosity inward
Traffic -- and work -- at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach have dropped dramatically. The union gives holiday handouts to needy locals, but this year it's helping its own members too.

By Ronald D. White
December 25, 2009

Several times, the small boy at the union toy giveaway looked over his shoulder at Steve Roldan and then back at the Hot Wheels V-Drop Super Velocity Track Set.

"Am I going to be able to keep this?" the boy asked. "Is this really mine?"

The longshoreman knew how the child felt. The 51-year-old had handed back his own prized possession, the first new car he'd ever bought, after work at the San Pedro docks dwindled and the car payments became too much to handle.

"If I had a Christmas wish, it would be to see more ships in this harbor," Roldan said. "People having the money to buy things for their families. It would be to see more work for everyone."

It's been a long, strange year for dockworkers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Theirs are among the highest-paid blue-collar jobs in the nation, paying $22 to $35 an hour.

LA Metrolink got a waiver to not post simple safety signs

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-metrolink-signs17-2009dec17,0,5114265.story

Metrolink got a waiver to not post simple safety signs
More than a decade ago, the commuter rail agency bypassed a federal requirement that was intended to help avoid accidents like last year's deadly Chatsworth crash.

RELATED
Metrolink's chief executive takes a demotion
Metrolink: Crash, aftermath and Times investigation
Interactive map: L.A.'s dangerous rails

By Rich Connell
December 16, 2009 | 8:40 p.m.
E-mailPrint
Share
Text Size

More than a decade ago, Metrolink and other commuter rail services throughout California sought and received permission to bypass a federal requirement to install simple safety signs intended to help avoid accidents like last year's Chatsworth disaster.

The action was disclosed this week in a technical and financial analysis of high-tech train collision avoidance systems prepared by the staff of the state Public Utilities Commission, which shares some oversight responsibilities for commuter rail systems.

The report concluded that the 25 deaths and 135 injuries caused by the Metrolink catastrophe show the signs should be installed, an action that could be ordered by the commission next year. The placards, which some railroads in other states are using, were to be placed on certain signals and at each end of stations such as Chatsworth.

Top West Coast Teamsters official resigns after settlement in harassment case-Pres Hoffa's Supporter In LA Area

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/top-teamsters-official-resigns-after-settling-harassment-case-.html

Top Teamsters official resigns after settlement in harassment case
November 4, 2009 | 1:37 pm
A top West Coast Teamsters official has resigned his post amid allegations that he sexually harassed a union secretary.

James A. Santangelo, a 50-year Teamster veteran who was a vice president of the union, resigned Friday from his membership in Local 848 in Covina and was automatically removed from all three elected positions he held with the union, said Bret Caldwell, a Teamsters spokesman in Washington.

Santangelo was president of Teamsters Joint Council 42, based in Covina and representing 129,000 members in California, Hawaii and elsewhere. He also headed Teamsters Local 848.

“He was certainly not forced out, but I can’t speak on his behalf,” Caldwell said of Santangelo, who earned almost $288,000 annually from his union posts, according to federal records.

The reason for Santangelo’s resignation “was not addressed in his resignation letter,” said Caldwell, who could not provide additional details.

LA Metrolink engineers union sues to block surveillance cameras in locomotives
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/the-union-representing-metrolink-engineers-today-filed-a-federal-lawsuit-to-halt-the-video-surveillance-systems-recently-inst.html

Metrolink engineers union sues to block surveillance cameras in locomotives
October 20, 2009 | 12:33 pm

The union representing Metrolink engineers today filed a federal lawsuit to halt the video-surveillance systems recently installed in all of the commuter rail line’s locomotives.

Metrolink installed cameras as a direct response to the deadly 2008 Metrolink crash in Chatsworththat killed 25 people and apparently involved an engineer who earlier had been text messaging on his cellphone.

Metrolink officials said the purpose of the video recording, which cost $1 million to install in all locomotives, was to ensure that engineers adhered to agency bans on cellphones, text messaging and allowing unauthorized passengers in the cab.

However, Paul T. Sorrow, acting president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, called the cameras an “invasion of privacy" that violated federal law as well as the terms of the union’s contract with Metrolink.

L.A. school district union SEIU 99 agrees to furloughs for bus drivers

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd-bus23-2009sep23,0,1967227.story

L.A. school district union agrees to furloughs
About 1,100 bus drivers will take six unpaid days off this fiscal year to help offset the budget shortfall. It is the first time in recent history that a district union has accepted such a concession.

L.A. City Council gains union concessions to help close budget gap

By Jason Song
September 23, 2009
E-mailPrint
Share
Text Size

In what Los Angeles school district officials hope is the first of several concessions by labor unions, bus drivers have agreed to take six unpaid days off this fiscal year, officials said Tuesday.

The deal is the first time in recent history that a school district union has agreed to furloughs. Last year, the district approved -- but never required -- four unpaid days off for most employees in an attempt to offset a budget shortfall.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is facing a nearly $200-million budget shortfall this fiscal year.

"We hope . . . we will be able to make similar announcements" in the near future, said David Holmquist, the district's chief operating officer.

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_13150574

LA Cabbies plan City Hall protest today

From wire service reports
Posted: 08/18/2009 08:42:44 AM PDT

More than 100 cabs will circle City Hall today, beginning at 11 a.m., in a protest against what drivers call a "backroom" deal that awarded a $250,000 contract to a consultant assigned to help develop a new system regulating the taxi business in Los Angeles.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa conceded there were some "administrative issues" regarding the hiring of the consultant but said those would be addressed.

Gray Palmer of the Los Angeles Taxi Workers Alliance told City News Service that "for years, taxi workers have been complaining -- screaming, really -- about corruption and exploitation in the taxi business."

"Each time, the city failed to take action and now, when the city is to create a new taxi system, once again the officials cut backroom deals with industry insiders because they think no one's looking," Palmer said. "We insist that taxi workers must have a clear, legitimate vote in creating a new taxi system."

The alliance said Transportation Department General Manager Rita Robinson and Deputy Mayor Jaime de la Vega approved a contract with Nelson- Nygaard Consulting Associates without public hearings, bypassing the Board of Taxicab Commissioners and the Los Angeles City Council.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ports-jobs20-2009jul20,1,1753425.story

7/20/2009

LABOR
Port 'casuals' have sinking feeling amid cargo woes

Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times
Mary Cienfuegos, 29, hopes for a job outside the “casual worker” hiring hall in Wilmington. About 9,700 vie for port work offered first to union members.
Jobs are scarce for the last-in-line nonunion dockworkers. Nearby communities also feel their pain.
By Louis Sahagun
July 20, 2009
At a hiring hall in the seaside community of Wilmington, a handful of job hopefuls reminisced about boom times, when the place was mobbed night and day by nonuniondockworkers seeking employment and vendors selling tacos and work gloves.

That was 2004 through 2007, when the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex was enjoying record-breaking gains in shipping that generated an abundance of work for "casual workers" designated to take jobs unfilled by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

'Casual' dockworkers

Southland ports' June decline in traffic...
ADS BY GOOGLE
Long Beach clean trucks
Fox has new Clean Air Compliant trucks for harbor drayage
foxtransportationinc.com
Union Member Lawsuits

http://www.therelevantstage.com/

Upton Sinclair's Singing Jailbirds: The Musical

Photo by John Mattera
Playing 22-24, and 29-31 May 2009
The Relevant Stage Theatre Company is mounting a visionary musical adaptation of Upton Sinclair's obscure 1924 play, "Singing Jailbirds". The new production titled, UPTON SINCLAIR'S SINGING JAILBIRDS: THE MUSICAL will feature a large cast of performers. The story is set in 1920's San Pedro, the Port Town of Los Angeles amid the demonstrations of union activists during the worker's movement.
UPTON SINCLAIR'S SINGING JAILBIRDS: THE MUSICAL will feature over 35 musical numbers, including numerous songs from the IWW's (Industrial Workers of the World) Little Red Songbook by Joe Hill, T-Bone Slim, Ralph Chaplin and other Wobbly leaders. The score also includes popular music from the decade such as If I Could Be With You, Have A Smile, Sonny Boy, If I Had You, Love's Ship, and more. Composer and Music Director Robert Gross, along with Writer and Lyricist, Ray Buffer also penned several original songs and the entire show consists of new musical arrangements.
The story is just as Upton Sinclair penned it: Red Adams, a leader of the Wobblies, is thrown into solitary confinement without criminal charges for peacefully demonstrating. Threatened with the charge of criminal syndicalism (a charge no longer in the State of California's law books) Red begins to lose touch with reality as isolation and starvation begins to play with his mind. Through Red's delusions we see his secret past, and his perceptions of the present and future. His steadfastness to the doctrine and vision of the One Big Union is what keeps him grounded as he and his fellow workers use songs to turn pain into power and get their pleas for change heard.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bridges15-2009may15,0,1231344.story

ILWU members to march in memory of slain workers
The event honors two area longshoremen killed on the waterfront in 1934. A bronze statue honoring longshoremen union founder Harry Bridges also will be unveiled in San Pedro.
By Louis Sahagun
5:24 PM PDT, May 14, 2009
Ever since the 1930s, when the legendary labor leader Harry Bridges founded the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, his name has conjured images of dockworker walkouts and bloody clashes with police on the picket lines in the hard-working port communities of Wilmington and San Pedro.

Friday, the ILWU will mark the 75th anniversary of the deaths of two union members who were killed during the waterfront strike of 1934 with a march and memorial service, and the unveiling of a bronze and granite Harry Bridges Monument in downtown San Pedro's John S. Gibson Jr. Park.

"For us, this is hallowed ground. It's for the guys who got killed -- and died on the job -- and for Harry," ILWU Pensioners President Al Perisho said Thursday as he admired the gleaming $130,000, 8-foot-tall monument installed at the corner of 5th Street and Harbor Boulevard.

May 15, 2009 LA ILWU Local 13 75th Commemoration March in Wilmington at 10:00 AM
Three mile march begins at corner of Harry Bridges Blvd. and Neptune Ave. in Wilminghton
at 10:00 AM

This is the html version of the file http://www.ilwu.org/press/2008/upload/ILWU_PensionersMemorial_rls.pdf.

INTERNATIONAL LONGSHORE & WAREHOUSE UNION AFL-CIO 1188 FRANKLIN STREET SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA 94109 (415) 775-0533 (415) 775-1302 FAX WWW . ILWU . ORG ROBERT McELLRATH JOSEPH R. RADISICH WESLEY FURTADO WILLIAM E. ADAMS President Vice President Vice President Secretary-Treasurer Monday, May 12, 2008Contacts: Art Almeida, ILWU Pensioners, 310.833.2872 Bill Orton, Communications Consultant, 562.637.6330 ILWU REMEMBERS WORKERS KILLED ON LOCAL DOCKS (LOS ANGELES HARBOR)—When International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) leaders and retirees come together on Thursday morning to honor dockworkers killed on the job in Los Angelesharbor since 1934, they will gather barely a month after laying to rest longshoreman Carlos Rivera, whose April 4th death makes him the twelfth longshore worker killed on the job on west coast docks since 2002. "Working on the docks is dangerous," ILWU Local 13 President Joe Cortez told the press in April, "but it doesn't have to be deadly." The ILWU's annual May 15th worker memorial is sponsored by the union's Southern California Pensioners Group (SCPG) to remember workers of Local 13 (longshore), Local 63 (marine clerks) and Local 94 (foremen) killed on the job. The May 15th annual worker memorial event marks the day in 1934 when striking longshoremen fought with police, guards and replacement workers in Wilmington. In Feb. 1934, westcoast dockworkers approved a coastwide strike, called for May 9th. The two workers shot by police in Wilmington on May 15 -- Dickie Parker and John Knudsen -- came just six days into the strike and became the first killed on on the waterfront in the tumultuous strike that led to the formation of the ILWU. Pensioner Art Almeida, a retired longshoreman and former ILWU Local President, organizes the annual event. The pensioners erected a permanent memorial in 2005 and now feature a port chaplain and bagpipe player at each year's ceremony. "It's a very special, hallowed place for us," said ILWU SCPG President Al Perisho. "Unfortunately, we're going to add another name, from April 4th when Carlos Rivera was killed and that's a tough proposition. We've lost a lot of people." Rivera, a longshoreman with 40 years on the waterfront, was crushed by a heavy-lift forklift as a crew was unloading steel at the California United terminal. "If someone get hurt now, they're usually losing their life," said Perisho. "The machines are big. These cranes are big. It's productivity, productivity, productivity." Safety is a key issue between the ILWU and employers. The two sides are currently negotiating the next version of the west coast longshore contract that is due to expire on July 1. The event, usually attended by several hundred, features city officials, retirees, loved ones, current workers, and leaders of the Pensioners group and the ILWU Locals for longshore workers, marine clerks and foremen.The ILWU Southern California Pensioners Group annual tribute to fallen workers takes place Thursday, May 15th at 10 am at the ILWU Worker Memorial and Benches, located in John S. Gibson waterfront park on Harbor Avenue, between 5th and 6th streets, in San Pedro.