ILWU elected officials give unprecedented interview with Port of L.A.’s Gene Seroka
ILWU International President Willie Adams and Coast Committeeman Frank Ponce De Leon gave an unprecedented, pre-negotiations interview with Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka on April 12. The interview was broadcast to the public and the media in the port’s April 2022 port report and has gathered thousands of additional views online.
Pres. Adams and Coast Committeeman Ponce De Leon highlighted the good work and hard sacrifices of the men and women of the ILWU through the pandemic and countered some misinformation that has generated fears and concerns about potential labor disruptions at West Coast ports by the usual anti-union forces.
The conversation with Executive Director Seroka also touched on the ILWU’s ongoing efforts to ease supply chain congestion, infrastructure funding for West Coast ports, and the need for comprehensive training programs for longshore workers, marine clerks, and foremen.
‘We are going to get an agreement”
The officers addressed some recent news articles about negotiations that were written in an inflammatory way to generate clicks for struggling news outlets.
“Everybody needs to tone it down and stop all the rhetoric,” Pres. Adams said. “The ILWU and the employers have been negotiating since the 1930s. There are adults on both sides of the table. Sometime in May, we are going to sit down. We are going to get an agreement.”
Coast Committeeman Ponce De Leon spoke about the successful bargaining that has been ongoing with the employers throughout COVID-19 to secure the health and safety precautions, and PPE necessary to keep the West Coast ports open as safely as possible and ensure that cargo continued to move.
“Over the last past few years, we sat down and collectively bargained agreements to get through COVID,” Ponce De Leon said. “We sat down and bargained an agreement to keep moving, to keep people safe, to make sure our ports were open. We didn’t close any of our ports up and down the whole West Coast. We made sure that our stores and hospitals had the PPE and supplies that they needed.”
Investing in West Coast ports
Another topic that was discussed was the need for more infrastructure investments in West Coast ports. Pres. Adams talked about working with the Biden-Harris Administration and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to get billions of dollars of infrastructure money to help ILWU workers keep cargo moving.
“What we do in maritime is bipartisan,” Adams said. “We want to make sure that our ports are functioning at 100 percent. We are putting the investment in there for good, working class jobs for our communities. At the end of the day, the ILWU, we’re on the side of the American people and the economy.”
Training
Another key issue discussed was training for the longshore industry. Seroka talked about the training center at the Port of Los Angeles that recently broke ground. “This will be the first goods movement training campus in our nation,” Seroka said. “The ILWU is going to be an important partner in this, from development to planning through to bringing in men and women to get trained here. Gov. Newsom announced a budget line item of $110 million to match with our 20 acres of land here in L.A. and $40 million worth of investment.”
“If we don’t train for the future, there’s not going to be a future,” Ponce De Leon said in response to Seroka. “I am glad that you and your leadership at the port have stepped up to push for the training center. The ILWU is going to be involved in it. And I’m going to challenge PMA. They need to be fully invested in developing this such the training programs, not only for longshore, not only for our mechanics but for our clerks and foremen as well.”
“The younger generation needs to know that we’re committed to them,” Adams added. “This training center is for the younger generations to upgrade their skills going into the future. They need to know as proud Americans that they can get a job down here on this waterfront and have the skills. They need to know that and that we’re leaving something behind for them that’s tangible. The White House has been committed, and the State of California has been committed. But the PMA, they’ve been missing in action for a while. And you know what, they have to step up.”
Towards a 24/7 supply chain
Since the issue of supply congestion started to dominate the news cycle in 2021, the issue of 24/7 port operations has been discussed by policy makers as a solution. Ponce De Leon underscored the fact that the ILWU workforce has always been ready to work 24/7, and that the other links in the supply chain– from distribution centers, truckers, and rail – need to match the ILWU’s commitment.
“We’ve always had the ability to work 24 hours a day, but it takes our employers to order us to fill those jobs,” Ponce De Leon said. “Port Envoy John Porcari said it best: ‘Our third shift goes underutilized.’ There’s a reason that it goes underutilized. We’re not being ordered to go to work. We don’t have chassis. We don’t have gondolas. We don’t have the movement of goods that we need to have on that hoot shift. The message from the Biden Administration to go to work 24/7 wasn’t pointed at the ILWU. We already have that in our contract. It was a measuring stick for everybody else to keep up.”
“All we offer is our labor,” Adams added. “We don’t make business decisions. The men and women of the ILWU are the best workforce on the planet, bar none. We do it right.”
The 22-minute video of the interview was produced by an multi-Emmy-winning producer and is available for viewing on YouTube under the title “Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka Interviews ILWU Leaders.”