{"id":6589,"date":"2023-07-10T08:39:09","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T13:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/?p=6589"},"modified":"2023-07-10T11:53:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T16:53:30","slug":"if-the-governor-wins-we-all-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/2023\/07\/10\/if-the-governor-wins-we-all-lose\/","title":{"rendered":"If the governor wins, we all lose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How the fight over unions at the Charleston port affects all South Carolinians<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Gov. Henry McMaster announced that he is suing the International Longshoremen to prevent union labor from running the cranes at the new Leatherman Terminal<\/a> in Charleston, his perennial assault on South Carolina workers reached a new and a dangerous low.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo: SC Ports Authority<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Since 2007,\nwhen work began to widen the Panama Canal to handle giant container ships, the\nstate has approved spending $1 billion to deepen the Charleston harbor, build\nthe new Leatherman terminal, and lay a rail-line to an inland port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Charleston\nport is one of the nation\u2019s busiest, holding the U.S. record for exporting cars\nand tires, which are made here. It also ranks as one of the country\u2019s most\nefficient terminals. With a $63 billion annual impact, the port plays a vital\nrole in the state\u2019s economy. According to the State Ports Authority, it creates\nor supports one in 10 jobs in South Carolina. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the port is\nso critical and is operating so efficiently, why is the governor suing the ILA\nin federal court to void its contract with the shipping lines? It defies reason\n\u2014 unless you throw knee-jerk, anti-union politics into the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The longshoremen have run Charleston\u2019s docks since 1869, with the founding of the Longshoremen’s Protective Union Association. In 1936, they joined the International Longshoremen\u2019s Association as ILA Local 1422, now the largest Black union local in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, the ILA is\nthe backbone of Charleston\u2019s Black middle class, with 1,000 active union\nmembers, 5,000 union retirees, and tens of thousands of family members whose\nlives for generations have been linked to the historic port. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The global\nshipping industry started using Master Contracts in 1957 to standardize the way\nports worked globally. In 1977, the first contract for container shipments was\nnegotiated. Finally, in 1995, the southern ports with \u201cright to work\u201d laws\nsigned on, and every port from Maine to Texas agreed to the contractual\nrelationship between the ILA and the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), which\nrepresents all the shippers and port operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Renewal of the\nMaster Contact of 2022 requires all port terminals to keep ILA\u2019s current jobs,\nand ports built after the 2016 contract must conform with the national practice\nof using ILA union labor to load and unload container ships. The only new port\nis the Leatherman Terminal in Charleston. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While all U.S.\nports are owned by the state where they operate, only three ports use state\nemployees to load and unload container ships and for other dock work, in Charleston,\nSavannah, and Wilmington, NC. The ILA has long done most of the work in these\nports, but a hybrid mix of union and state workers is unique to these states.\nThe port authorities elsewhere do not operate their ports; they contract out\nthe dock work to professional organizations with an established relationship with the shipping lines \u2014 the ILA on\nthe Atlantic and Gulf Coast and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union\n(ILWU).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These ports,\nand the politicians who control them, echo the old South\u2019s anti-union, low-wage\nmantra as the way to recruit business. The maritime industry wants to standardize\nshipping operations and has committed to seeing new port terminals come in line\nwith the rest of the ports in the United States and most of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gov. McMaster\u2019s lawsuit argues that using the ILA to operate the cranes\nat the Leatherman Terminal would drive up the cost to the shippers and reduce\nthe profit margin for the state-owned port. The governor considers the Master\nContract a form of blackmail for forcing the new terminal to use union labor\nthat will displace the lower-wage state employees. This will reduce the state\nports\u2019 cut of the per-container fee charged the shipper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National\nLabor Relations Board and the ILA have soundly rejected the governor\u2019s argument\nbecause the ILA works for the shipping lines, not the state, and the governor\ncan\u2019t dictate who they do business with. Plus, South Carolina\u2019s anti-union law\nprohibits the state from sabotaging labor contracts between consenting\nemployers (shipping lines) and employees (longshoremen). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the competitive advantage of prohibiting state workers from\nbargaining keeps wages down and the state\u2019s profits up, using poorly paid state\nworkers to compete with private business seems at odds with the Republican idea\nof limited government and free markets. Actually, the hybrid operation that the\nState Ports Authority is running is very much like the French government\nsubsidizing Airbus and competing with Boeing. This seems a contradictory and\nunprincipled position for a staunchly capitalist governor and his appointed SPA\nboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the governor\nprevents the ILA from running the container cranes now run by state employees,\nthe Master Contract prohibits the container ships from using the Leatherman\nTerminal. The container ships are not using the Leatherman docks now, and if\nthe court overturns the National Labor Relations Board\u2019s ruling, the Leatherman\nterminal won\u2019t be used by the big ships for which it was built. Whatever the\ndecision, the court\u2019s ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and\nwill result in at least another year of litigation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also\nworth noting that the governor\u2019s\nappointees who run the SPA gave over half of the more than $6 million in\nbonuses to their white-collar staff in 2021. Larger bonus checks than usual\nwere from the additional container traffic due to the pandemic, which included\na $336,875 bonus to past-president Jim Newsom,\nwho left office with $1.1 million. Current president and CEO Barbra Melvin took\nhome $615,333, which included her $18k country club dues and $11,000 car\nallowance. Eleven more executives with annual salaries topping a\nquarter-million received five-digit bonuses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since state agencies aren\u2019t required to divulge salaries below $50,000,\nwe can only guess how the remaining bonus money was shared with the SPA hourly\nwage earners. The Nerve<\/em>, a\npublication of the conservative SC Policy Council, calculated the median bonus\nfor wage workers was $2,555, much less than the executive staff\u2019s $7,753 car\nallowance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s be clear.\nMcMaster\u2019s campaign to bust the ILA is just the latest example of this state\u2019s strategy\nto recruit businesses and increase corporate profit by suppressing wages.\nDuring the 1980s, the state Department of Commerce paid to erect posters in\nnorthern airports with the slogan \u201cSC Has No Labor Pains.\u201d The posters featured\na grinning, pregnant-looking man in a hardhat, a crude message to corporate\ninterests that the Palmetto State\u2019s business-friendly regulations will keep\nwages down and profits up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The governor\u2019s\ngrandstanding against unions \u2014 on our dime, no less \u2014 is just the latest\nassault on working people. Twenty years ago, the SC legislature supported the\nfirst wave of pre-emptive laws to stop things that weren\u2019t even happening. In\n2002, South Carolina was one of five states with no minimum wage. We were the\nfirst to pass a law to prevent local governments from establishing a minimum\nwage above the federal minimum, which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009. In 2012, the same national lobbyists, their\nS.C. counterparts, and the legislators they gave campaign donations pushed\nlegislation through to prohibit local governments from requiring any<\/strong>\nemployee benefits, such as sick leave, as a condition to get a business\nlicense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, 179\ncountries have laws requiring paid sick leave. The United States is not one of\nthem. In 2017, McMaster signed a law that prohibits even unpaid<\/em> sick leave or any other employee benefit as a requirement to\ndo business in South Carolina.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the\nworst phases of the pandemic, when the CDC and DHEC were advising the public to\nwear masks, the governor took his cues from the Hospitality and Retail Association\nrather than health professionals. He issued an executive order that allowed\nbusiness owners to fire employees who wanted to mask up and made them\nineligible for unemployment compensation they had earned. This most certainly\nendangered workers, and may have cost lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The governor\nand his well-organized, low-wage worshipping benefactors have long preyed on\nthe unorganized workers of South Carolina. If they prevail in their quest to\nbreak one of the nation\u2019s oldest and largest Black unions, the quality of life\nfor workers here will be poorer, and the value of our lives further cheapened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the governor\nwins, we all lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the fight over unions at the Charleston port affects all South Carolinians When Gov. Henry McMaster announced that he is suing the International Longshoremen to prevent union labor from running the cranes at the new Leatherman Terminal in Charleston, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-network-newsevents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6592,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6589\/revisions\/6592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}