Keep Off the Rock! - Ferry Workers Call for Boycott of Alcatraz Tours

Submitted by intexile on Sat, 2007-01-27 20:21. Alcatraz | Hornblower

International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Communications Director Steve Stallone describes the struggle by members of the ILWU’s Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU) to regain their jobs working on the ferry to Alcatraz Island after the Bush administration’s National Park Service awarded the contract to a nonunion firm.

Alcatraz Island, home of the high-security prison-turned-tourist-attraction, now stands as the latest symbol of the Bush administration’s anti-union tactics. On the eve of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, union workers here in the San Francisco Bay Area who lost their jobs on the Alcatraz ferry to nonunion Hornblower cruises marched along the waterfront and rallied at the company’s pier with several hundred supporters. They are asking the public to boycott tours to the island until the ferry once more operates with union labor.

The workers, members of the Inlandboatmen’s Union (the Marine Division of the ILWU) and the Masters, Mates & Pilots (MM&P), had handled the boats to the “Rock” in the middle of the San Francisco Bay since 1973. The National Park Service, which runs Alcatraz, took new bids for the ferry run in 2005. In September of that year, the Park Service awarded a new, 10-year contract for the run to Hornblower Yachts Inc., a blatantly anti-union outfit that runs dinner cruises on the bay.

That move cost some 15 Inlandboatmen deckhands and 35 MM&P captains, deckhands, customer service reps and ticket agents their jobs, health coverage for themselves and their families and the payments into their pension funds. It also blew a hole in San Francisco’s formerly solid union waterfront.

The IBU and MM&P fought the contract transfer with a variety of tactics. They challenged it in court and at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), organized political and community support and regularly leafleted the Hornblower pier once the nonunion service started. They even staged a couple of civil disobedience actions, which led to the arrest of several members and supporters. The California Labor Federation has called for a boycott of all Hornblower operations.

On Sunday, Jan. 14, the protesters assembled at Harry Bridges Plaza—named for the legendary ILWU leader—and then marched north up the Embarcadero to Hornblower’s headquarters at Pier 3. They stopped there for a brief rally where San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin told them the board had voted unanimously in solidarity with the union workers and that

Terry MacRae [the owner of Hornblower] has besmirched the proud history of the San Francisco waterfront.

At his side, Fiona Ma (D), the majority whip in the California state Assembly, pledged her ongoing support.

From there the sea of green “Boycott Hornblower” signs continued rolling up the Embarcadero—along with the 20-foot inflatable “Terry MacRat”—as the union drivers of trolley cars moving along the broad boulevard, cars honked in solidarity. The demonstrators stooped again and rallied at Hornblower’s Alcatraz ferry pier.

The local union leader of the Inlandboatmen Union, Marina Secchitano, recalled that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—who was an honorary member of ILWU’s Local 10 in San Francisco—took his final public action before his assassination in support of Memphis’ striking garbage workers. She echoed his equation of civil rights and union rights.

We are not facing German shepherds and fire hoses as King did—our fight is a cakewalk by comparison. But our goals are the same as his—decency, fairness and doing the right thing.

A line of local labor leaders representing dozens of unions hit the microphone to pledge their support for the union ferry workers no matter how long the struggle. San Francisco Labor Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Tim Paulson called the conflict “the fight of 2007.”

UNITE HERE Local 2 President Mike Casey recalled the years it took his local to finalize a contract with the San Francisco Marriott Hotel and the ILWU’s constant support throughout.