A period of negotiations such as at present between our union and the employers - between the ILWU and the PMA - brings on serious examination of our relations with them, the employers. In a relatively peaceful period after a contract has been signed for a certain period, say three years, we begin to feel everyone is getting along fine. We are making good money, the shipping lines are making good money and, except for occasional grievances that are settled peacefully, everybody is getting along pretty good. Of course the contract needs some amendments here and there and that is taken care of in the next round of negotiations.

This is pretty much the way waterfront labor relations have been since 1948. Those conditions came about from long and bitter labor struggles led by our union from 1934 to 1948 in which the employers were finally forced to accept the union and bargain in good faith.

We cannot continue that way because the employers have decided to disrupt the whole program and roll back the clock to 1934. They are doing so for one simple reason - MORE PROFIT. One might say that more profit is the goal of every industry. The recent "scandals" of corporate crime and fraud shows to what lengths they will go by inventing profits that don't exist and thereby fleecing workers and small stockholders of millions of hard earned dollars.

Is that what the PMA is up to in the present negotiations? We are not saying the PMA is using the criminal methods of the Enrons, Worldcom, etc., but we are saying the result is the same - lowering the wages and incomes of waterfront workers. Crime, by whatever name stinks just as rotten.

We need to stop such gouging of our living standard by the PMA.

SUPPORT OUR UNION WHATEVER IT TAKES.