Interesting. Is this a unionwide move to begin taking on the warehousing industry? Or was it just a hotshop?
Rite Aid Warehouse Workers Organize With ILWU
thugarchist wrote:
Interesting. Is this a unionwide move to begin taking on the warehousing industry? Or was it just a hotshop?
Its called the International Longshore and Warehouse Union for a reason 
After the 1934 strike the ILWU instigated the "March Inland", which has been written about extensively, to organize the warehouses and distro centers that ship and receive the goods longshoremen handle at the ports. Its a strategy of following the links of shipping and distribution in order to build more power within the supply chain.
Here are some links:
http://www.ilwu19.com/history/the_ilwu_story/the_warehouse_industry.htm
http://www.ilwu.org/history/oral-histories/march-inland.cfm
http://www.ilwu.org/dispatcher/2005/09/kagel_march_inland.cfm
http://harrybridges.com/pdfs/ILWUOct07.pdf
The book "The March Inland" By Harvey Schwartz covers this history as well.
Another current campaign is the Blue Diamond Almond warehouse in Sacramento:
http://www.bluediamondunion.org/
The ILWU tries to organize industrially within the supply chain. Hence the inclusion of longshore, warehouse, inland marine transport, agricultural (primarily in Hawaii) etc...
gurley wrote:
thugarchist wrote:
Interesting. Is this a unionwide move to begin taking on the warehousing industry? Or was it just a hotshop?Its called the International Longshore and Warehouse Union for a reason :)The ILWU tries to organize industrially within the supply chain. Hence the inclusion of longshore, warehouse, inland marine transport, agricultural (primarily in Hawaii) etc...
Sure, but it has never really been a priority. I think it would be interesting if it was.
thugarchist wrote:
gurley wrote:
thugarchist wrote:
Interesting. Is this a unionwide move to begin taking on the warehousing industry? Or was it just a hotshop?Its called the International Longshore and Warehouse Union for a reason :)The ILWU tries to organize industrially within the supply chain. Hence the inclusion of longshore, warehouse, inland marine transport, agricultural (primarily in Hawaii) etc...
Sure, but it has never really been a priority. I think it would be interesting if it was.
It is a priority and has been for at least the last 15 years in it's current incarnation.
It kinda looks like from the website that this is only the second warhouse unit in the union. Local 6 Bayer appears to be the only one. Now I know union websites tend to be piss poor but are there others? And if so are they in conjunction with other unions? I know the ILWU did some partnering with the Teamsters for a while on truckers and the Teamsters have lots of warehouse contracts nationally.
There are warehouse locals in Portland, Oakland, Seattle, Los Angeles/Long Beach, Sacramento, Alaska, Hawaii and British Columbia. I'm pretty sure the directory is online. I haven't combed the website but it must be pretty bad. fnbrill is right, I have no idea how many contracts the warehouse division has. But I do know that they have more than 2
fnbrill wrote:
Thug - the warehouse section of the ILWU is fairly sizable - especially as a percentage of the membership. especially in the Bay area and Hawai'i. i
I'm sure. Just saying I can't find it on the website. It does say that the warehouse division covers recycling workers and other non-warehouse jobs but then doesn't give any details.
How does the ILWU warhouse stuff compare to say RWDSU on the east coast? Or the Teamsters nationally? The UAW has some but not really enough to be a factor.
I'm just kind of interested in warehouses as an industry. I recently had some discussions with folks on how to look at the industry differently than we currently do. Right now most unions look at warehouses as pieces of industries rather than an industry in itself and this doesn't seem to make much sense in terms of market-based analysis. The real estate value alone makes it distinct.
Found this from 07. Not much specifics but certainly lists a number of locals with warehouses within the bulletin.
http://www.ilwu.org/dispatcher/2007/04/warehousecaucussanfrancisco.cfm
The warehouse division isn't particularly large in numbers, but total population on the west coast isn't that much compared to the area RWDSU is organizing. In porportion to population though, the ILWU is huge in Hawai'i and sizable especially in the Bay Area/Sacramento. the Portland "warehouse" local (which also has misc. shops in it such as Powell's Books) has perhaps 700-800 members. My Teamster Local (largely warehouse) has 3000+.
thugarchist wrote:
The Hawai'i local is very, um, not industrial. I'm always interested in successful core industries and rarely interested in other units except to shake my head in despair.
I disagree with assesment of hawai'i. While many are in hotels, etc. Most are in a vertical union based on agriculture, warehousing and processing and transport f the products. THAT's fairly important. If you want to live on beet sugar, be my guest! 
fnbrill wrote:
thugarchist wrote:
The Hawai'i local is very, um, not industrial. I'm always interested in successful core industries and rarely interested in other units except to shake my head in despair.I disagree with assesment of hawai'i. While many are in hotels, etc. Most are in a vertical union based on agriculture, warehousing and processing and transport f the products. THAT's fairly important. If you want to live on beet sugar, be my guest!
Meh. The intersection of transport and warhousing is sensible. Including processing on the end of that chain and agriculture on the beginning is silly.
The ILWU does consider warehouse work to be an industry unto itself and organizes strategically based upon which warehouses ship or receive their good through ILWU ports. When the ILWU first started to organize warehouses most were located on or close to the docks. Longshoremen and warehouse workers worked side by side packing and loading cardo. The industry radically changed due to containerization and now most warehouses, and even some traditional "longshore" jobs, have moved far inland. But, the basic concept...organizing along the chain of distribution, hasn't changed.
I don't want to remark on the number of members in the warehouse division because, honestly, I'm not sure. But like fnbrill said, I'm sure the highest density is in the Bay Area/Sacramento area, Hawaii and possibly Longbeach/LA. The ILWU has always been a relatively small union with a ton of industrial power. Your right though, for a while warehouse was organizing what were essentially "hot shops" such as SF bike messengers (they transport stuff right ???) and Powells books (they have a big warehouse).
But generally, in the ILWU, the warehouse division is where they are focusing their organizing efforts. They are organizing industrially and with the goal of building power along national and international distribution chains.
I hope this made sense...I'm pretty tired and ready for bed
gurley wrote:
The ILWU does consider warehouse work to be an industry unto itself and organizes strategically based upon which warehouses ship or receive their good through ILWU ports. When the ILWU first started to organize warehouses most were located on or close to the docks. Longshoremen and warehouse workers worked side by side packing and loading cardo. The industry radically changed due to containerization and now most warehouses, and even some traditional "longshore" jobs, have moved far inland. But, the basic concept...organizing along the chain of distribution, hasn't changed.I don't want to remark on the number of members in the warehouse division because, honestly, I'm not sure. But like fnbrill said, I'm sure the highest density is in the Bay Area/Sacramento area, Hawaii and possibly Longbeach/LA. The ILWU has always been a relatively small union with a ton of industrial power. Your right though, for a while warehouse was organizing what were essentially "hot shops" such as SF bike messengers (they transport stuff right ???) and Powells books (they have a big warehouse).
But generally, in the ILWU, the warehouse division is where they are focusing their organizing efforts. They are organizing industrially and with the goal of building power along national and international distribution chains.
I hope this made sense...I'm pretty tired and ready for bed :)
Nah. That makes sense. I hope its increasingly successful. If only you'd leave the AFl now.
thugarchist wrote:
fnbrill wrote:
thugarchist wrote:
The Hawai'i local is very, um, not industrial. I'm always interested in successful core industries and rarely interested in other units except to shake my head in despair.I disagree with assesment of hawai'i. While many are in hotels, etc. Most are in a vertical union based on agriculture, warehousing and processing and transport f the products. THAT's fairly important. If you want to live on beet sugar, be my guest!
Meh. The intersection of transport and warhousing is sensible. Including processing on the end of that chain and agriculture on the beginning is silly.
The reason the Hawaii local has so many hotels is because of the shift in Hawaii from the agricultural industry to tourism. The ILWU is HUGE in Hawaii and has been for a very long time. Many of the folks working on the plantations were 2nd or 3rd generation ILWU members. When the plantations started shutting down many workers got jobs in hotels and the ILWU assisted them with training, forced employers to provide training and eventually represented them on the job in their new industry.
gurley wrote:
The reason the Hawaii local has so many hotels is because of the shift in Hawaii from the agricultural industry to tourism. The ILWU is HUGE in Hawaii and has been for a very long time. Many of the folks working on the plantations were 2nd or 3rd generation ILWU members. When the plantations started shutting down many workers got jobs in hotels and the ILWU assisted them with training, forced employers to provide training and eventually represented them on the job in their new industry.
Yeah sure. I undertsand the development our unions have gone through. They make sense from certain perspectives. I have a personal hardline on industrial strategies though. Its one of the reasons I originally left the UAW.
Hawai'i labor has a lot of quirks. HERE has a lock on healthcare for example. Totally interesting historical wierdness there. Maybe they'll give it up in the next few years...
Workers win tough fight at Rite Aid warehouse
After a tough two-year battle, the workers at Rite Aid's distribution center in Lancaster, CA won their fight to join International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 26. They won by 283 to 261, with 18 challenged ballots; 629 people were eligible to vote.
"I am so happy right now," said Ignacio "Nacho" Meza, a member of the workers' organizing committee at the warehouse. "We had to make sacrifices, but we showed that if we stand together, if we speak up, we can make changes for ourselves, our families and the people who come after us." Rite Aid fired Meza in January 2007 for his support of the union, but had to rehire him six months later as part of a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The workers at the Lancaster warehouse began organizing in March 2006. They wanted an end to mandatory overtime piled on ten-hour shifts and to punishing production quotas. They had enough of sweating through desert summers with no air conditioning in their work areas, and of working "at will" with no job security.
The workers prevailed despite Rite Aid's all-out effort to squash their organizing drive and the flaws in U.S. labor law.
A months-long investigation by the NLRB found enough evidence to try Rite Aid on 49 labor law violations. These included disciplining, demoting, suspending and firing union supporters; threatening that people would lose their raises if they voted for the union; and publicly disparaging union supporters. The company settled in May 2007 rather than face an NLRB judge.
In many ways, federal labor law makes it almost impossible for workers to organize. For example, the company has unlimited access to the workers. Union supporters can only talk organizing with their co-workers when they are all "off the clock." The union doesn't even get a list of voters until 10 - 20 days before the election, and the list does not have to be complete.
"We take our hats off to the workers who had the courage to stand up for their rights in the face of the company's campaign," ILWU International Vice President Joseph Radisich said. "They should know they have the whole ILWU behind them as they sit down to bargain a contract and improve their working conditions."