Many ILWU jobs at cruise terminals have been lost since COVID-19 caused a growing industry to shut down
ILWU workers at the Port of Los Angeles World Cruise Center are shown loading provisions onto the Norwegian Joy cruise ship during the busy 2019 cruise season. After the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a No-Sail order in March of 2020, the number of ILWU jobs at West Coast cruise terminals dropped precipitously.
By all accounts, 2020 was going to be a boom time for cruise terminals and ILWU jobs on the U.S. West Coast. Ports from Seattle to San Diego had invested in major cruise terminal upgrades, announced new sailings to Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska, and anticipated growth as high as 30%.
The expansion came to an abrupt halt in February 2020, when the Carnival Diamond Princess sailed into the San Francisco Bay carrying 700 passengers and crew who were infected with COVID-19. The following month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suspended cruise operations nationwide as part of its efforts to curb the spread of the virus, and renewed its No Sail Order in April, July and September.
It was a devastating blow to cruise-related jobs, and there is still no clear path to reopening.
Though the health impacts and loss of life remain the most devastating results of the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial pain of losing cruise-related jobs is crushing. Cruise cancellations led to a freefall in man-hours for ILWU Coast Longshore Division workers who have taken pride in working at cruise terminals in Seattle, Astoria, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego, as well as ILWU workers in related jobs in Alaska, Hawaii and Canada.
“Every cruise ship call needs significant ILWU manpower to handle the provisions that make cruising possible: food, luggage, entertainment equipment, maintenance supplies, pretty much every piece of cargo,” said Cam Williams, ILWU Coast Committeeman. “ILWU workers also handle the luggage screening, tying up of vessels, and letting go of vessels. That’s a lot of lost ILWU jobs, and lost revenue for the communities. A busy day at a cruise terminal can add 20,000 visitors spending money in a single day.”
Seattle
Prior to 2020, more than a million cruise passengers were boarding, departing and visiting at the Port of Seattle’s Smith Cove Cruise Terminal and Bell Street Terminal at Pier 66 each year. Cruise Critic web site named Seattle the Best North American Seaport in 2019, and the future looked bright.
ILWU Local 98 President Scott Reid said that before COVID-19, an average weekend would be so busy at Seattle’s cruise terminal that dozens of ILWU workers would travel from other ports to fill the work.
“During the season, we’d often work three cruise ships every day, Friday through Sunday,” said Reid. “The port was talking about at adding additional calls, and we were expecting some of the super-megaships coming here that hadn’t called in the past. There was talk of adding dock space in Alaska to handle bigger ships.”
Reid said the canceled April-through-September cruise season was “a huge blow to Local 98 and the other locals – not only here in Seattle, but the whole Puget Sound Area and Oregon Area as well. Nothing has really taken its place. Some days, there’s just no work.”
Astoria
At the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon, Astoria is a town of just under 10,000 residents that had leveraged its old-world charm to attract steady growth in its cruise business over the past 10 years. When the Port of Astoria canceled all 37 anticipated cruise ship calls for 2020, its loss of jobs hit ILWU Local 50 hard. The Local has also lost significant log-ship work due to tariffs under the Trump Administration.
The town’s skyline currently features the Norwegian Cruise Line ship Regatta, which has been at berth since October 2020 with 93 crew aboard. Norwegian is paying the port $75,000 per month for the dock space while it awaits a change in cruise status, but unfortunately rental income does not replace Local 50’s lost work hours.
Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach
Though several cruise ships are visible off the San Pedro Bay, they are not carrying passengers. They are periodically docking for fuel, supplies and services – part of the required operations for the cruise lines to reestablish the ships in U.S. waters and meet federal regulations for when they are once again allowed to resume post-pandemic sailings with passengers.
The Port of Los Angeles lost more than 70% of its cruises in 2020, a total of 93 cancellations. The Long Beach Cruise Terminal likewise canceled sailings from March of 2020 onward. The cancellations led to a massive drop in hours for ILWU workers, from nearly 165,000 hours in 2019 to just 71,000 in 2020, a dramatic decrease for the twin ports’ popular cruise terminals.
San Francisco
ILWU history features prominently in San Francisco’s cruise business, as its cruise terminal at Pier 27 is named after former ILWU International President James P. Herman. Prior to COVID-19, Carnival Cruises had added new routes to ports in Alaska, Mexico and Hawaii, and the port anticipated a cruise expansion of 30% in 2020.
ILWU Local 10 President Trent Willis said, “On any given day, a cruise ship would employ up to 80 members per shift, maybe more. If you have a cruise ship in the terminal four shifts day and night, then if you add the number of ships, that’s a serious impact. Losing what would be a quarter of our work for the year is stinging pretty bad.”
Willis said that to some extent, ILWU workers in the Bay Area are staying busy with “breakbulk, new cranes coming in, old cranes going out, and we’ve had good auto operations. Cars have picked up since people can’t get on buses due to COVID-19. It’s getting us over the hump, but we’ve definitely felt the loss of cruise ships for this amount of time.”
San Diego
Prior to COVID-19, the Port of San Diego had announced new routes to Hawaii and, but then had to cancel 119 cruises – essentially its entire 2020 season. Local media estimated a $200 million hit to the local economy, affecting everyone from restaurant and lodging businesses to transportation and security companies.
“The terminal is at a complete standstill,” said Anthony Soniga, President of ILWU Local 29. “The cruise ships are still sitting at anchor, and we might tie them up for a crew change, and handle some stores and provisions. But we’re still waiting for the CDC and the industry to tell us when they are going to open up – probably not until 2022.”
Soniga said Local 29 was looking forward to the growth in jobs, but because of COVID-19, “now we are a low work opportunity port. We’re used to 25-30 port calls a month, and now we’re down to 3-6 per month.”
Soniga said that Local 29 is still handling a weekly Pasha Hawaii ship, some breakbulk, and regular fresh fruit shipments. “We’re trying to remain optimistic, but it’s hurt everybody.”
Alaska
Alaska Longshore Division President Dennis Young said the COVID-19 shutdown has cost ILWU registered and casual workers 140,000 hours, based upon an expected 22% increase in Cruise activity from 2019 – and that reopening cruises to Alaska faces several hurdles.
“A lot of it depends on the vaccine rollout, which has been very slow coming,” said Young. “The expectation is that all of the cruise ships’ labor and passengers will be required to have proof of the vaccine. With vaccines not rolling out, and the airlines reducing flights for passengers to Seattle, it’s a challenge.”
To make matters worse, the Canadian Government issued a new order in February of 2021 which will prohibit cruise vessels in all Canadian waters until February 28, 2022. The ruling, if it stands, effectively kills the season for foreign-flagged cruise vessels from the mainland U.S. to Alaska for 2021. Only a handful of smaller ships fly a U.S. flag and don’t need to visit a foreign port to satisfy the Passenger Vessel Services Act.
“ILWU workers are taking some pretty good punches,” said Young. “A lot of members are hurting and struggling; we’re just crossing our fingers that the federal government and state governments start to work together and get us to the other side of this pandemic.”
What’s next?
The unprecedented nature of any reopening plans involve coordination among the ports, the cruise lines, the CDC, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), state and county-level departments of public health, and other emergency and public health agencies. Even with the all-clear, resuming cruise sailings won’t happen overnight: Aside from passenger reservations, it takes 60-90 days to get cruise vessels ready to sail again, to prepare crews and get ships positioned in their market.
In December 2020, the CDC issued a Framework for Conditional Sailing Order, outlining a phased resumption of cruise ship passenger operations, but to date, no date has been set yet for U.S. passenger sailings.
Willie Adams, ILWU International President, said “The ILWU has weathered nearly a century of challenges of every kind, and COVID-19 is among the toughest so far. The pandemic has hit everyone in this country emotionally and financially, and we are fortunate to be united in a strong, resilient union. We will continue working toward the return of cruise jobs with the safety and wellbeing of workers, crew and passengers at the forefront of our minds.”