William Mandel* < wmmmandel@earthlink.net >
My family is mourning the death of my grandson, Daniel Glick, age 38, San Francisco longshoreman, a month ago. My daughter Phyllis, his mother, is still mourning the death of Danny's father, Keith Glick, San Francisco longshoremen, several years ago at age 58. Both had repeatedly suffered severe disabling injuries on the job. My daughter subsequently lost her lover, San Francisco longshoreman, same age.
The deaths of all three were consequences of the culture promoted by that job, in which one cannot plan one's life because one never knows what days one will work, and what shift, in an industry in which the most rapid turnaround of ships is the governing "law."
That industry has now locked out all longshoremen on the West Coast, San Diego to Seattle and northward, seeking to smash a union that insists on employers' adherence to agreed safety procedures and is resisting employers' desire to shift a major job category out of control of the union, whose past struggles have won good wages and benefits.
Danny
Bonilla of the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union pickets the Port of Oakland.
From SF Chronicle photo on 2oct02
Public opinion is vital in such struggles. It can be expressed in calls to talk shows, resolutions by organizations to which one belongs, letters to editors, and particularly by messages to members of Congress and the Senate. Even supposed middle-of-the-roaders like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has close ties to the Asia trade, are calling upon the government to use the Taft-Hartley Act to break the union.
Public opinion is best expressed by physical presence at demonstrations in support of the workers. A powerful impact is created when TV shows large crowds including people who, by dress, manner, and age, are clearly not themselves the workers affected, but who are showing support.
I hope recipients living in the San Francisco Bay Area will attend the rally tomorrow morning, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2002, 10 a.m., at Port View Park in the port of Oakland.
Take the Port of Oakland exit off 880 South, get off at Maritime Blvd., make a right onto 7th St., and take it till it dead-ends at the park. If you don't drive, there will be a volunteer car shuttle service from the West Oakland BART station from 9 to 10 a.m., and then back following the rally. If you can help carry people in your car, contact the organizers at srsndln@pacbell.net or phone 1-415-641-8616.
Sixty-five years ago I walked the picket line in the Little Steel Strike in Cleveland, Ohio. I'll be at Port View Park tomorrow at 10, cane and all. Hope to see you, if you are a Bay Area resident.
* William Mandel's autobiography, SAYING NO TO POWER (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999), was written for the general reader. However, if you teach in the social sciences consider it for student reading. It is a history of how the American people fought to defend and expand its rights in my lifetime, employing the form of the life story of one who was involved in most serious movements: labor, student, peace with the USSR, civil rights South and North, civil liberties (He seriously damaged the Senate Internal Security Committee, the McCarthy Committee, and the House Un-American Activities Committee with testimonies that may be heard/seen on his website, http://www.billmandel.net ), the RADIO OF DISSENT (37 YEARS ON PACIFICA), with very extensive information on its history) and the feminist movement, although he is male. The book contains some fifty pages on his late wife, Tanya, appearing appropriately throughout the book. They may be found in the index under Mandel, Tanya. Mr. Mandel's activities began in 1927. He's now 85 years old. The book is available through all normal sources. If you want an autographed copy, send him $23 at 4466 View Pl., Apt. 106, Oakland, CA. 94611
Bonds of brotherhood stretch across generations
In Tony Cashero's line of work, brother and family are defining terms.
The 45-year-old Stockton resident is one of 10,500 dockworkers locked out in the contract dispute that has shut West Coast ports since Sunday. He's waiting out the crisis at home, eating cheap food like hamburgers. He is confident that union leaders can bring home a good deal but anxious that the talks may drag out.
"We're a typical middle-class family in that much of our income is spent by the time we're making it," Cashero said Thursday.
He's going to apply for state unemployment insurance, but the $230 weekly benefit wouldn't stretch much beyond the food bill for his household of four -- his wife, 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son. Cashero doesn't know where he'd get the money to pay the mortgage payment on his house in a middle- class neighborhood.
He experienced a long stretch of joblessness once before, when his dad was out of work for more than 130 days during the longshore strike of 1971. He remembers the government-issued flour, butter and canned goods on the family table.
"We were eating welfare food," he said. "Nowadays, welfare food isn't available."
Cashero has been a full-time shipping clerk and dues-paying member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union since he was 35. Before that, he was a barber and a part-time longshore clerk, a sideline he got into with dinner-table tips from his dad about work coming in at the hiring hall.
He made it a full-time career about the time his father, who had diabetes, died at age 59 after 42 years as a clerk on the docks. Since then, he has worked at ports around the Bay Area.
Longshore clerks like Cashero are at the heart of the dispute with the employers, who want to go to high-speed, computerized systems to handle cargo, saying clerical work on the docks hasn't changed in 15 years. The fight is over who -- management or the union -- will control the new jobs.
While the union fears it could lose ground to outside contractors, management says the clerks would be able to keep their jobs.
Clerks now log cargo movements by hand and organize the storage of goods in warehouses. Mistakes are serious, Cashero says, because they can require loads to be repacked at the employer's expense.
This time of year, Cashero normally would be busy with the importing and exporting of agricultural goods at the ports of Stockton, Pittsburg and Antioch.
California growers export 20 boatloads of bagged rice during a season, most of it headed for Japan. And import commodities come the other way -- pine lumber from Chile, bulk cement, fertilizer.
The employers complain that the clerks are richly rewarded for their skill level, quoting six-figure salaries. Cashero said his pay is "not even near it."
"I would consider myself middle class -- in a good year, maybe upper middle class," he said. Clerks in the busiest container ports could earn significantly more "if a guy's taking great jobs and working as much as he could."
Cashero's education in the world of longshore work began when he was a little kid at his father's side. He met some of the longtime characters on the docks in the Delta, people like Charlie Spatola, Frank McDonnell and Avie Moriera.
Spatola "had these little stubby cigars" and used to wear a working man's cap but sometimes sported a derby. McDonnell became a role model. "A great worker," Cashero said. "He did a great job." Moriera is still at it after 40 years. "He can still move 100 miles an hour up and down the shed," Cashero said. "He's a great union man."
Cashero works with the sons of some of these men. Longshore work is something like construction in that often it is passed along from fathers to sons.
He calls it a brotherhood, not only because it has a history of strong union involvement but also because workers rely on one another for their personal safety and job security.
The pace is faster than it was during his father's day, and the equipment is more dangerous.
"I've seen so many close calls on the docks, it's unbelievable," he said. "I've seen cargo that dropped and rolled and barely missed people. I've also seen people come out of hatches where cargo had slipped and they trapped their legs.
"It's very much like being in a combat situation," he said. "Your safety depends on the guy next to you."
Cashero said dockworkers are "family-oriented people," not the "pirates and rowdies" of popular image.
"Everybody wants to work this out," Cashero said. "Most men on the waterfront take a lot of pride in what they do. I'm a little nervous that it's gone this far, but I have confidence in the people we have negotiating."
E-mail Rick DelVecchio at rdelvecchio@sfchronicle.com
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