Bathroom Solidarity

There’s been a worker vs. worker dust-up at the Port of Seattle over, of all things, access to bathrooms.  Short haul truckers who deliver goods to the Port are forced to piss in two port-o-potties, while the local Longshoremen have the kingly privilege of shitting on porcelain.  Longshoremen (ILWU) local president Cam Williams argues that having the truckers walk to the restroom creates “a situation where someone could get run over and possibly killed.”  However, the real issue is worker on worker friction.  The dock owner cites a desire to “avoid potentially volatile confrontations between the truckers and longshoremen” as reason for the separate bathrooms.  An ILWU member has twice physically prevented truckers, who are largely East African immigrants, from using the john, resulting in misdemeanor fourth-degree assault charges.  The incident highlights the continuing need for solidarity in the face of working class internecine conflict over scraps handed down by management.

Turf wars bloody all workers

All unions have to deal with external and internal turf wars.  The California Nurses Association (CNA) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) raid each other in Nevada and California.  The SEIU International takes over Locals, and Locals rebel against the International.  God help you if you’re trying to organize RNs in a hospital and you want to have the janitors or tech workers (represented by a different union) support your nurse organizing campaign.  It would take 50 conversations and the ghost of Eugene Debs to get that shit off the ground.

Workers must overcome a sometimes myopic focus on small advantages to see the larger picture

In this instance, the beef pits short-haul truck drivers, who are “independent contractors” barred from creating a union and earning $30,000/year, against ILWU members.  What’s particularly unfortunate about this situation is that ILWU is one of the strongest displayers of solidarity in the labor movement.  ILWU stood in solidarity with SEIU clerical workers in December 2012 and shut down all 29 west coast ports in May 2008 to protest the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (good luck reading about that in the MSM btw).  Although these incidences are often overblown by a media intent on promoting worker competition, the lack of working class solidarity is a real issue.  Why not force management to build additional bathrooms, or let your trucking brothers just use the bathroom?  Until workers, and the unions elected to represent them, view their parochial interests as part of a broader national struggle, corporations will be able to exploit privileges as petty as bathroom access to drive a thousand wedges through the Left.