Seattle Press on Line - Crane Operators' Union Files Suit

Port of Seattle News

Crane Operators' Union Files Suit

By Jo Bailey and Carl Nyberg

Carl Zievers, left, and Dave Personius. Jo Bailey photo.

Apr 25, 2002 -- Carl Zievers, left, and Dave Personius, members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 46, demonstrated with others last week at Fishermen's Terminal, hoping to alert taxpayers to their grievances with the Port of Seattle. Their jobs as crane maintenance workers were eliminated when the Port turned crane maintenance work over to Stevedoring Services of America, a multi-national corporation. The union has filed suit against the Port alleging they made policy decisions without open public meetings and that they violated a legally binding collective bargaining agreement.

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John Coffee	Nov 07, 2003
i was handing out copies of the ISO paper today down at the ILWU hiring hall and managed to sell a paper to someone i took to be a union rep. i was curious about ssa's role in the seattle port authority's decision to use the city taxpayer's money to renovate the cranes, then only to allow ssa to take over the cranes, firing the previous workers according to market efficiency. when i asked him what ILWU had done about this he told me that "the ILWU had always had the crane contract as long as the cranes have been there". i wonder if he was refering to the several new cranes shipped to the port last summer, because i believe the ILWU has the contracts for the crane working positions now that the cranes themselves are under the control of ssa. he then told me that "we [the ILWU] work for ssa", commenting that they were "a big scary entity". funny how the world works, but you might want double-check some of these facts.