Dreams of union-wage jobs lure temporary workers to docks

By Natalie Kitroeff

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — If Cynthia Byington wins her version of the lottery, she will probably have to wait a decade to claim her prize. But Byington doesn’t mind, because the reward is a shot at one of the rarest lifelines left for working-class Americans: a unionized blue-collar job.

This month, for the first time in over a decade, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union will raffle off thousands of part-time gigs working at Los Angeles-area ports. The slots don’t come with benefits or steady hours. But eventually, after putting in years at the docks, some part-timers may earn the chance to become unionized longshoremen, who can make as much as $200,000 per year.

“You get full benefits your entire life. Even if it’s not ’til I turn 90, it’s worth it,” said Byington, 53.

The 2,400 names drawn in the raffle will become “casual” longshoremen.

Although they perform the same work as union members — loading containers on and off massive cargo ships — they work far fewer hours. And the wait to receive full union benefits can stretch over a decade.

The average casual worker who showed up for weekly shifts earned nearly $31,000 in 2016, according to data from the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the shipping companies and terminal operators. Full-time union members get paid $161,000 on average, but those with seniority can earn tens of thousands more.

Today, there are part-timers who have waited 13 years to get into the union. But the PMA said that for now, there are no firm plans to elevate any of them.

Hundreds of thousands are expected to have applied for the new casual slots, the PMA said. Scores of Southern Californians rushed to post offices and postal stores across the South Bay in January, buying up the 4-by-6-inch blank cards required to enter the raffle.

At the Postal Annex, a tiny storefront two miles from the ports in the San Pedro area of LA, owner Patrick Meehan could barely take a breath without getting a phone call about the lottery.

The massive interest in the longshoremen’s lottery is a sign of just how desperate Americans are to gain even the most tenuous ground toward a stable, high-paying career working with their hands.

Dwindling blue-collar jobs

“It says a lot about the state of our current labor market,” said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center. “There are a dwindling number of blue-collar union jobs where people with just a high school education can make a good living.”

Fewer than 14 percent of workers in manufacturing, construction and trucking belonged to a union in 2015, down from nearly 40 percent in 1973, according to a database of Census data compiled by economists from Trinity University and Georgia State University.

That’s what propelled Byington to put her name in the running.

“It’s once in a lifetime,” said Byington, who lives in a mobile home. She has seen longshoremen and women buy houses and put their kids through college on union paychecks. Another friend recently got teeth implants thanks to union-provided dental care.

In the 1990s, longshoremen would spend three to five years free-lancing before they got elevated onto the rolls of the ILWU, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former casual workers. But then the recession hit, trade faltered, and the PMA temporarily stopped hiring union members.

The ports are using more automation, which is part of the reason the union workforce hasn’t grown much. In 2016, the Port of Los Angeles processed 17 percent more container traffic than in 2005, but the number of full-time union longshoremen had increased by only 3.5 percent.

Longshoremen also say employers have been relying more and more on part-timers.

“The PMA, terminal employers and ILWU work together to maintain a balanced approach on the number of registered workers needed at the ports,” said Wade Gates, a spokesman for the PMA.

Craig Merrilees, a union spokesman, said the union has traditionally pushed to get more full-time positions. The last time the PMA added full-time union members to the payroll was in 2012. “Generally speaking, the employers would like to see more casual workers earning a little less pay,” he said.

Mario Huerta says he has been working part time for 10 years desperately trying to amass enough experience to become a union longshoreman.

Huerta and other casuals show up around 6 a.m. at a dingy dispatch hall and wait to hear if their number gets called for one of three shifts at the port. If they don’t get called up in the morning, they can return around 4 in the afternoon for the next round of work opportunities.

On good weeks, a part-timer will manage to nab two to three eight-hour shifts, casuals said.

After driving 60 miles from his home on a recent Friday, Huerta was assigned a shift that would likely involve securing containers to a ship deck.

“Sometimes I get work two or three days a week. Sometimes it’s only one day a week,” Huerta said, standing in the rain just outside the building where casuals go to get dispatched. He has no idea when the unsteady work will turn into something long-term.

“How close am I to being elevated? Nobody seems to know,” he said.

Several others who failed to get work that day said they felt as if they’re being kept out of the union for as long as possible so that the shipping companies can avoid hiring more highly paid, full-time longshoremen.

The casuals all cobble together odd jobs on days they can’t find work at the docks, including gigs in construction, landscaping and as security guards.

Chris Grove, 39, has spent 13 years reporting for duty at the casual hall and says the instability of the work “tore up” his marriage. Grove, who comes from a long line of longshoremen, including his mother, says the work at the ports was steady and continuous until the recession of 2008-2009.

“I was able to put groceries on the table and keep the wife happy,” he says.

After the financial crisis, though, his name barely ever came up for shifts. So he got a second job, installing security systems, and then another, installing satellite dishes for DirecTV. He put his name on a list to join an elevator construction union and became a bouncer and then a security guard at a cannabis collective. He even got paid to register voters.

The work was unpredictable, he says, and his paycheck was so much thinner than it once was.

Grove still shows up for work at the casual hall some weekends, but now he’s more focused on his day job: In 2014, after waiting for eight years, he was admitted into the International Union of Elevator Constructors and makes good money with a full slate of benefits.