On 8 October 2002, US President George W Bush invoked the country’s 55 year-old Taft Hartley Act to order the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) to end its lockout of 10,500 dockworkers in US West Coast ports. Such government intervention is extremely rare and last happened more than 20 years ago.

However the government has not been the only body intervening in a dispute that has ended in victory for the union. A body called the West Coast Waterfront Coalition was set up in late 2000, bringing together shipping giants like Maersk and APL and manufacturers and retailers like Toyota, Mattel, The Gap and Walmart. The WCWC describes itself as “a group of concerned business interests, representing shippers, transportation providers, and others in the transportation supply chain”.

The issue at the heart of the dispute between the PMA and the dockworkers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) was the introduction of new logistics technology to the West Coast ports.

There is already plenty of modern technology in the West Coast ports. The ILWU was always ready to negotiate the introduction of new technology, but it wanted to be allowed to adapt to the new world of port employment and to represent workers in the new technology jobs. The employers, on the other hand, appeared to see technological change as a way of killing off a well organised union.

The WCWC claimed to support negotiations, but it also issued public statements about the risks to the economy of union strike action. It has regularly expressed its concern at the threat of any disruption to “US manufacturers in global just-in-time supply chains”.

Protecting supply routes at all costs

The group has been in close discussions with the Bush Administration. Threats of the use of the Taft Hartley Act against union strike action were made early on in the dispute. In the event the same effect was achieved by a neat piece of choreography: the employer instigated a lockout, the WCWC demanded the invocation of Taft Hartley, and the President obliged.

According to AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, “This is the first time in the history of the United States that a president has let an employer lock out workers in an extended quest to undermine the workers’ union – creating a phoney crisis – and then reward that employer’s action with government intervention.”

The ILWU dispute is of global significance for many reasons. One lesson has been the strategic importance now given to logistics by global corporations and governments. This development is not going to be restricted to the United States. As employers recognise the global supply chain as a key strategic asset and develop their organisational response, so too must unions.