Part-Time Dock Workers Picket ILWU : Charge Discrimination in Selection Process for Full-Time Jobs

Part-time stevedores and cargo clerks picketed the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) Local 13 in Wilmington Monday, charging that they are being passed over in an ongoing registration of 350 new workers.

About 50 men and women part-time workers, known as “casuals,” carried signs accusing the union of favoritism in its selection process by choosing friends or family members instead of experienced dock workers.

No official at the ILWU Local 13 could be reached for comment on the workers’ charge.

Ironically, a lawsuit by nine longshoremen’s wives, accusing the ILWU of discriminating against family members, was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last week.

In their efforts to become union members, the wives had found themselves subject to a new “no spouse” rule that the ILWU said it had instituted in response to “numerous complaints of nepotism and favoritism in the selection of new registrants.”

The new registration was based on the terms of a 1982 federal consent decree on the future hiring of women as either stevedores, who load and unload cargo, or marine clerks, who handle the paper work involved with cargo operations, according to a joint statement Monday by the union and the Pacific Maritime Assn. The association represents companies engaged in loading and unloading operations.

That decree, based on settlement of a 1980 discrimination suit, provided that women should be 20% of the longshore work force in 15 years. Women are believed to total about 5% of the 2,500 longshore workers and about 10% of the marine clerks.

In this recent selection process, which began last September, women are getting 140 jobs (50 clerks and 90 stevedores) and men 210, Terry Lane, the association’s assistant area manager, said. A joint committee of the association and the ILWU devised the process of selecting the registrants, he added.

The selection process for the women has been completed, Lane said, but interviews for the male registration is continuing.

For the casuals, who number more than 4,000 in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, registration is a much-sought prize. When the casuals pick up work, they are paid about $17 an hour, picketers Monday said. But the work is irregular.

Full-time Status

Registered workers, on the other hand, have the status of full-time employees. Longshore jobs pay $40,000 a year and up.

The casuals who picketed Monday, both men and women, said they had two and 10 years experience and were frustrated that their names had not made it through even the initial screening of the more than 20,000 applicants, and thus had not even been interviewed.

“I’ve got 10 years doing this,” fumed 37-year-old Neal Schreiner. “There’s no merit given to seniority. Our contention is we’ve been circumvented, starved out.”

Many of the women who work as casuals, Ruby Cruz of San Pedro said, are low-income workers and mothers like herself, who are trying to stay off welfare. “All I want is a job,” she said.

The problems faced by casuals are longstanding and common to every port, Schreiner said. In past registrations, he added, “It’s always the same. I haven’t seen one old-timer get in.”

The Pacific Maritime Assn.’s Lane, however, said the registration process is continuing. “We started out to hire a total of 350 positions. We wish to continue to add more, possibly another 300 persons.”

However, with more than 4,000 casuals in the port, he added, “It is not possible they can all be offered employment.”