Jackson Joins Labor Protest at Steel Plant

Nearly 10,000 union members and supporters, including presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, held a spirited rally at Los Medanos College here Saturday to protest the use of non-union labor on a $350-million project to modernize an aging steel factory in this Bay Area industrial city.

“We’re being undercut by scab labor at home and slave labor abroad,” Jackson said. He decried the decision of USS-POSCO, a joint venture of USX Corp. and Pohang Iron and Steel Co. of South Korea, to refurbish the plant using predominantly non-union workers. Many of the workers came from out of state to get jobs that pay considerably less than normal union wages in this area.

Benefits Seen

Officials of USS-POSCO, the first joint venture of American and Korean steel companies, have said that they will have the world’s most advanced steel finishing facility when the plant is completed next year and that it will benefit the local economy.

Earl McIntyre, a spokesman for the company, said there had been no attempt to harm unions. Rather, he said, the construction contract was awarded to a company that made a bid that was $45 million lower than any other company.

But veteran construction workers, including plumber Gene Gifford of Martinez, said construction unions offered to work for 80% of their regular wages, an offer that was spurned. He said the project, the largest non-union construction job in Northern California history, represented a threat to the livelihood of construction workers in the area.

“I’ve been out of work seven months in the last two years” because of the proliferation of non-union jobs in the area, Gifford said.

Many workers on the project are being paid $7 an hour, less than half standard pay rates for journeymen in this area, said Greg Feere, secretary-treasurer of the Contra Costa County Building and Construction Trades Council. He said about 80% of the workers on the project came from out of state and that since they receive no health insurance from their employer, they are forced to use county hospitals, adding to the burden of local taxpayers. McIntyre asserted that two thirds of the workers were from the local area.

Source of Controversy

The huge project has been a major labor controversy in this area for more than a year, since the construction contract was awarded to AMK International, an Alabama-based firm that traditionally operates without union workers.

Democratic presidential contender Jackson, wearing a blue and gold baseball cap emblazoned with the initials of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union--ILWU--was interrupted by applause frequently during his speech. The crowd waved American flags as he spoke, and Jackson seemed aware that there have, at times, been anti-Asian overtones in this battle.

He expressed strong support for the unionists’ right to protect their standard of living. But he cautioned them to “keep your eyes on the prize.” He said workers in Korea making $2 an hour “can’t take something from us when they don’t have the right to organize. Let’s not use scapegoats. Whoever is working under slave labor conditions we must not turn on them, we must liberate them. If they get paid better, they can buy what we produce.”

After the rally, the protesters marched three miles to the steel plant and listened to more speeches.

Frequent Problems

Besides facing protests like Saturday’s and pickets every day, the construction project has encountered other difficulties. Two workers have been killed at the plant in the last year, prompting wrongful-death lawsuits by family members and investigations by the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Additionally, there are suits alleging discrimination against black workers, said labor lawyer Victor Van Bourg. And on Thursday, a veteran steelworker who had been injured in the plant shot and killed a company doctor, according to eyewitnesses, after he was told that he could not return to work full time.

In a symbolic show of support, the ILWU on Saturday staged a one-day work stoppage at all California ports from San Diego to Eureka. Union spokesman Daniel Beagle said it was the first time such a massive stoppage had been conducted “in decades,” but he said the ILWU had given officials of the ports plenty of advance notice in an attempt to minimize disruption.

Officials of several of the ports--including Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland--said the impact was not substantial.