Can a book written about the 1960s negotiations offer a path to a new ILWU-PMA agreement?

In 2023, resistance to automation is a factor delaying a new contract between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). It is instructive to recall that back in 1960 the ILWU, under its founding President Harry Bridges, helped trail-blaze mechanization (and containerization) at U.S. West Coast ports.

During the 1960s, thanks to growing trade from Asia, container volumes exploded resulting in major benefits to West Coast ports while resistance to automation by union members at East and Gulf Coast ports did not result in the same benefit.

The Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma were major beneficiaries of the move to containerization and mechanization.

The 1960 ILWU-PMA Mechanization and Modernization Agreement (also known as M&M) is the subject of “Facing Modernization: The West Coast Longshore Plan” a book written by Lincoln Fairley, Research Director for the ILWU between 1946—1967, and a participant in the M&M negotiations.

Reviewing the impact of M&M when he completed his book in 1979, Fairley provides this summation: “In the main, the new highly mechanized technology has been accepted, not alone because it appeared inevitable, but because it made the work easier. While the longshoremen suffered a temporary setback due more to unanticipated developments than to the original design of the M&M Plan, this was indeed only temporary. Now, more than five years after M&M ended, though membership has declined, no one has been laid off, earnings have risen, and with a wage guarantee and a good pension plan West Coast longshoremen continue to enjoy a unique degree of lifetime security.”

In 1960, the ILWU’s objective was to protect its Pacific Coast longshore members against job losses threatened by labor saving technology. The PMA’s objective was to secure elimination of restrictive Union rules, so as to regain control over cargo handling operations and thereby increase efficiency. In retrospect, both sides appear to have achieved their objectives.

Harry Bridges Leadership and “Bridges Plan”

Many ILWU critics of the M&M agreement blamed Bridges for being manipulated by Paul St. Sure, President of the PMA. St. Sure sought a more collaborative relationship with the ILWU and with Bridges. He also sought an agreement on M&M with the ILWU as a means to eliminate what the PMA saw as outmoded work rules that resulted in poor productivity and overmanning of cargo-handling.

Fairley discounts the criticism that St. Sure and the PMA manipulated Bridges because he argued that Bridges’ primary focus was preserving the ILWU following years of attacks against the union for its radical politics.

Harry Bridges, the founding president of the ILWU, won recognition for the union with employers following the longshore strike of 1934. As a result of the ILWU’s success, Bridges became one of the most prominent labor leaders in the West.

For Americans suffering from the deprivations of the Great Depression of the 1930s, labor leaders such as Bridges were looked on as national heroes.

Under the rule that no-good deed goes unpunished, Bridges was the subject of three attempts by the U.S. government to deport the Australian-born Bridges from the United States for his alleged membership in the Communist Party. Bridges admitted to being a Marxist, but not a member of the Communist Party, and survived all three deportation attempts.

By 1960, Fairley writes that Bridges saw M&M as means to secure “the preservation of ILWU (sic) as a strong union.”

Another consideration may have been that, as a Marxist who also intimately understood the business of cargo-handling, Bridges saw that the mobilization of economic resources for the benefit of the working classes could not be achieved without mass-production.

As an example, in 1942, Bridges spearheaded a plan to accelerate loading of military cargoes in support of U.S. military operations in Europe and Asia, to fight Fascism.

The plan, known as the ‘Bridges Plan,’ was implemented by the federal government in 1942.

Bridges’ biographer Charles Larrowe discusses its impact: “Within a month, the Bridges Plan, officially known as the Pacific Coast Maritime Industry Board, was in operation as an agency of the U.S. War Shipping Administration. Before another month was out, the longshoremen, highly praised by the Army and Navy, the shipowners, and the local newspapers, were setting new records for loading ships.”

M&M Accelerates West Coast Containerization

The impact of the M&M Agreement on West Coast ports was dramatic, Fairley reports: “From one characterized by an antiquated, highly labor-intensive technology not radically changed since sailing days, the industry has become capital-intensive, with a whole new fleet of speedy, specialized ships -- container ships, automobile carriers … a turnaround time reduced from a week to, in some cases, a day, with resultant large capital-cost as well as labor-cost savings … characterized by … monster cranes …”

Following the 1960 agreement, the ILWU charged that the higher productivity came from the attempt by employers to increase workloads on longshoremen without mechanizing cargo-handling operations.

In 1963, the ILWU, under Bridges, demanded that the PMA provide forklifts and machinery so as to reduce the burden on workers and mechanize faster. And so, it was the ILWU that led the efforts at mechanization while the PMA resisted.

In the “Box,” a book about the history of containerization, author Marc Levinson describes what happened next: “Bizarrely, the parties now switched sides. The union demanded that the employers mechanize faster to eliminate these physical burdens. “We intend to push to make the addition of machines compulsory,” Harry Bridges told management negotiators in 1963. “The days of sweating on those jobs should be gone and that is our objective.” The ship lines were hesitant to spend the money. The ILWU responded by filing grievances against the lack of machinery on docks and in holds. After one of the strangest arbitration proceedings to occur in any industry, the employers were ordered in June 1965 to provide longshoremen with more forklifts and winches.”

M&M By The Numbers

In “Facing Mechanization” Fairley describes some of the statistical gains following M&M that included increased container volumes and wages at West Coast ports along with job reductions: In 1960 container tonnage was 494,000 tons. By 1970, container tonnage for the West Coast ports had risen to 8,743,415 tons. At the same time, dayshift earnings for ILWU members were reported as $1.62 higher than their longshore counterparts on the East and Gulf Coasts, represented by the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA). In 1970, the gap between the ILWU and ILA had risen slightly to $1.72.

The reduction of registered ILWU members went from 16,002 in 1960, to 14,381 in 1970.

The decline among Gulf and Atlantic Coast ILA longshore workers was higher: going from 27,998 in 1960 to 18,197 in 1970.

Fairley describes how the benefits of the M&M continued into the 1970s, including a substantial increase in earnings for longshore workers: “Though average annual hours worked by “A” men have fallen somewhat below the levels of the M&M decade (1960-1970), average annual earnings have increased sharply from a low of $8,626 dollars in 1970… to $13,065 in 1974 and… to $16,410 in 1977. This increase in earnings reflects not only increases in wage rates but also the growing proportion of men employed at skilled jobs.”

Productivity as a Path

Fairley also cites how the M&M agreement resulted in huge increases in productivity: “After a decade of M&M, the index of productivity reached 239 (on the 1960 base) and by 1977 was up to 562… It is probably true that no other important industry has enjoyed such phenomenal increases.”

Fairley noted that the technological advances associated with M&M benefited West Coast ports even more because resistance to change by ILA workers at Gulf and Atlantic Coast ports was more pronounced: “Once under way, the technological advances which have changed all aspects of the (West Coast) waterfront have accelerated by their own momentum. But without the changes in work rules, voluntarily agreed to by the Union (ILWU), the advances could only have come more slowly, perhaps at great cost to both parties in work stoppages and to the shipping public, as the East Coast experience has demonstrated.”

As the ILWU ponders how to address the issue of automation at West Coast ports in 2023, the union’s history spearheading the containerization revolution at West Coast ports from 1960 onwards is worth remembering for the benefits that the ILWU achieved for labor, management and for maritime related industries and employees.