Challenger Spinosa Is Elected Chief of Longshore Union
A veteran dockworker and labor official from Los Angeles was elected Friday to head the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, among the nation’s most powerful labor organizations and one that is facing a range of difficult technological issues on the West Coast.
James Spinosa, 59, defeated incumbent Brian McWilliams for president of the San Francisco-based union, which has about 60,000 members in Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Canada.
ILWU contracts now cover workers in trades including shipping, warehousing, health care, agriculture and hotel services. On the West Coast, the union represents about 10,000 longshore workers, marine clerks and dock bosses.
Spinosa, who has been an ILWU member for 31 years, assumes control of the organization at a time when labor and management are grappling with several key issues to keep West Coast ports competitive, including worker productivity and the use of computers, automated equipment and on-dock rail lines to move cargo.
Shipping industry executives say Spinosa’s victory should bring some stability to the union, particularly in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where local members have repeatedly called for McWilliams’ resignation.
“The ILWU must now unite to face the challenges ahead,” Spinosa said in a prepared statement. “My goal is to continue with our organizing, to retool the union’s infrastructure and to continue to build the union in its great historic tradition.”
Spinosa, the union’s vice president for mainland operations, received 7,564 votes, and McWilliams received 4,812. About 44,000 ILWU members were eligible to vote.
Since 1996, longshore workers in Long Beach and Los Angeles have launched several efforts to remove McWilliams from power, including votes of no confidence and direct appeals for him to take a leave of absence for the remainder of his term.
At the same time, the Pacific Maritime Assn. launched a series of attacks on the ILWU, criticizing union members for declining productivity and improper work stoppages and slowdowns.
The association, which is the union’s counterpart, negotiates and administers labor contracts on behalf of 100 shipping companies, terminal operators and stevedore companies on the West Coast.
“I think the election is going to bring some stability to the coast because the union has finally decided on a leader by a significant margin,” PMA President Joseph N. Miniace said. “Discord in the union is not good. The last two or three years has been difficult for the industry.”
Miniace said the shipping business is entering another period similar to the 1960s, when the use of large cargo containers loaded onto ships revolutionized the movement of goods at sea. This time the change in technology involves computers, automated equipment and on-dock rail lines that could reduce the need for labor.
Industry leaders say these changes are necessary to keep West Coast ports from losing cargo to their competitors on the Gulf Coast, East Coast and Mexico.
Further challenges to West Coast ports, they say, could come from a proposal to widen the Panama Canal to accommodate the giant container ships that almost exclusively call on the Western seaboard.
