Washington Governor’s Race Puts Workers’ Rights on the Ballot

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Washington Governor's Race Puts Workers' Rights on the Ballot

While in Congress, ​Dave Reichert targeted the rights of ILWU workers

Election Day is almost here and ILWU members and their families are in trouble depending on who becomes the next Governor of Washington state. Former King County Sheriff and Representative (WA-8) Dave Reichert, a Republican, is running for Governor against Democrat Bob Ferguson, our current Attorney General.

There's a world of difference between the two on all the major issues but the real make-or-break for all of us is this: Reichert wants to strip the ILWU of our right to take job actions during a contract fight.

While in Congress in 2015, Reichert, along with Dan Newhouse, Mike Coffman, and Amata Radewagen (all of them Republicans) introduced legislation that would amend Taft-Hartley to allow a President to intervene during a "slowdown."

The bill was called the Protecting Orderly and Responsible Transit of Shipment (PORTS) Act and press releases issued by its sponsors singled out the ILWU and our 2014-15 contract negotiations with the PMA.

Here's how the PORTS Act would have worked if passed and some background on the original anti-labor bill it sought to amend:

The Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947 during a period of intense anti-union backlash fueled by Republicans after they took control of Congress after WW2.

Taft-Hartley amended the National Labor Relations Act (which established the NLRB) of 1935, allowing for the introduction of "right-to-work" laws, banning secondary boycotts and sympathy strikes, outlawing the closed shop, and more.

One key provision of Taft-Hartley gives the President the authority to intervene in a "threatened or actual strike or lockout" that may "imperil the national health or safety" by issuing an 80-day "cooling off" period, ordering workers back to the job and both sides to resume discussions.

Taft-Hartley has been invoked on several occasions, including by Nixon during our 1971 strike and again by Bush Jr, this time against the PMA, during the 2002 lockout. Taft-Hartley has been in the news again after a reporter asked Biden if he would invoke the act against the ILA's recent strike, to which he said "No. I don't believe in Taft-Hartley."

That was a lucky break for the ILA under the current administration, but we can't always count on that kind of support if the White House flips.

What Reichert's legislation would have done would add "slowdowns" in addition to strikes and lockouts. While the PORTS Act would affect all unions, Reichert and his friends have made it perfectly clear that it's the ILWU and our reputation for putting up a fight that he's after.

This isn't the first time anti-union members of Congress have written legislation to specifically attack the ILWU. The 1940 Smith Act, for example, was sometimes informally referred to as the "Harry Bridges Bill," one of many attempts to deport Harry and break the ILWU between 1934-55.

Just a year after Taft-Hartley was passed, the employers ran with the new bill and forced a strike in '48. They used the closed shop provision to attack the hiring hall and another section (later ruled unconstitutional) to redbait Bridges and try to remove him from office. (Both efforts failed.)

So here's the score: organized labor is at a crossroads in this country. On the one hand, our unions are more active, powerful, and emboldened than we've seen in decades. Just look at the historic wins made by the UAW and ongoing attempts to organize non-union employers like Starbucks and Amazon.

Our own victories at the big table last year and successful organizing drives, including at the Wallenius VPC in Tacoma, are a part of that trend, made possible because of favorable legal, political, and economic conditions.

On the other hand, there's a deeply reactionary conservative movement hellbent on rolling back what gains we have left from the New Deal and the Civil Rights Eras - and unions are on the chopping block. Dave Reichert, along with Trump and JD Vance, is a part of that anti-labor counteroffensive.

The NLRB itself (which oversees union elections and holds employers accountable for breaking the law) is facing a multifront attack, with massive corporations like Elon Musk's SpaceX and Trader Joe's arguing in court that the NLRB itself is unconstitutional. This is an old fight going back to the '30s, when anti-union employers in Harry's time made the same arguments.

Reichert won't have that same authority and control, but who's Governor during a strike, slowdown (real or imagined) or lockout matters. As we all know, Ron Desantis deployed the Florida National Guard to try and break the recent ILA strike.

Good politicians either back labor or, even better, stay out of it. They don't intervene against us or try to change the rules to take our rights away.

Whoever wins the gubernatorial (and presidential) race is going to be in office when the ILWU-PMA contract expires in 2028. We can't have an enemy of the ILWU like Dave Reichert in office when that time comes. Let's mail in our ballots and keep this union-buster out of office.

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