COLUMBIA, SC (AP) — Dockworkers and the governor of the state with the lowest percentage of unionized workers are clinging to a labor dispute that left the East Coast’s deepest port’s newest container terminal largely inactive.
Pending in a federal appeals court is a National Labor Relations Board ruling that upheld the right of unionized dockworkers to exclusively staff cranes at the Hugh K. Leatherman terminal in Charleston, South Carolina, as part of a a framework contract from 2012.
The alternative is a so-called hybrid model implemented by other South Carolina terminals backed by Republican Governor Henry McMaster, where loading operations would be carried out by employees of the state and the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422.
But union organizers find much more at stake than the availability of better-paying jobs and the resumption of operations of the recently completed first phase of the billion-dollar project. They fear a reversal could set the stage for other right-to-work states to roll back national labor contracts they don’t like.
ILA Local 1422 took the fight to the South Carolina State House on Wednesday with a rally attended by more than 300 workers, allies and union leaders from across the country.
“An injury to one is an injury to all. It’s Charleston today. It could be Savannah tomorrow,” said Timothy Mackey, president of the local union representing Georgia dockworkers at one of only three ports alongside those in South Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina, who have a hand. -Hybrid artwork.
Supporters said allowing union workers to power Leatherman’s cranes would bring practices in South Carolina in line with much of the United States. ILA International Vice President Ken Riley said the South Carolina state governor and port authority are not honoring a contract that encompasses the entire nation.
“To say that you guys – a predominantly African American workforce – will never step into those cranes, never step into those machines, like it’s done all over the country,” Riley told the Associated Press. South Carolina got the message? »
The South Carolina State Ports Authority argued that a union-only workforce would burden the terminal by increasing operating costs. Their salaries are governed by the framework contract, unlike those set for state employees.
McMaster told reporters Wednesday that a labor victory would send the wrong message to companies interested in moving to South Carolina. If the NLRB’s decision is upheld, McMaster said he supports appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We no longer need union involvement in South Carolina,” McMaster said. “The last thing a booming economy needs is to throw a wrench into a system we have that works like a charm.”
Addressing Wednesday’s rally, Democratic state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said a union loss would lower wages earned by the state’s most powerful black union. She credited the workforce with creating an African-American middle class in a state where port operations support 1 in 10 jobs.
Meanwhile, container shipping companies have refused to use the terminal due to a disagreement over a development that has left the site largely idle since it opened two years ago. The large freighters that South Carolina has sought to woo by deepening the Port of Charleston and doubling the port’s capacity by the terminal’s completion within the next decade are not present.
Cobb-Hunter blamed state inactivity for not following the contractual agreement.
“It’s like we’re pouring money into a black hole,” Cobb-Hunter told the AP as attendees held up signs reading “Leatherman is empty. The question is why?”
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James Pollard is a member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places reporters in local newsrooms to report on underreported issues.