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Why the Pacific Coast Pensioners Association?
Excerpts from the May issue of the Dispatcher
By Arnie Auvinen
PCPA President
In a monumental negotiations breakthrough, the first ILWU pension checks
were passed out to retiring ILWU longshoremen, clerks and foremen in July 1952.
Soon after retiring, these pensioners began to organize into clubs in the
various areas of the West Coast. In the beginning a main purpose of the pension
clubs was to provide a place and an opportunity for ILWU retirees and their
wives to visit and keep alive satisfying work and fraternal relationships going
back many years. The purpose of all this was to have a fraternal organization of
ILWU pensioners that would give them unity, direction and purpose. Through their
association they would have a voice to speak for them at both the union and the
national
level. They believed that a fraternal adjunct to the ILWU would
be of considerable value. The pensioners and wives who gathered at the first
convention were all veterans of the 1934 strike. They had been together through
the struggles of the 30s and 40s and knew there was no such thing as a free
lunch. They understood that in order to maintain their benefits they had to
support the ILWU as they did when they were working.
The ILWU still needs the support of all pensioners, spouses and widows. Out
of 8,700 eligible retirees, only 2,700 are members of the PCPA. Our union and
the labor movement as a whole are at a crossroads, and both need the support of
all the ILWU pensioners. There is no one among us working or retired who
should forget that what we have today is here because someone fought on our
behalf long before we were part of the union movement. We "old
timers," pensioners or whatever we want to be called, should not sit back
and collect our pensions and Social Security and ignore what has happened with
the airline and automobile companies, where pensions and retiree health care
have been slashed or eliminated altogether, and think we are immune. Only by
joining in the struggle can we be sure what we enjoy today is not lost.
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