Marine Division, ILWU We’re the largest inland maritime union on the West Coast. We were founded in San Francisco in 1918 as the Ferryboatmen’s Union of California, later renamed the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific (the IBU). Our Union extends from Alaska to Washington, including Oregon, California and Hawaii. Altogether, we have about 4,000 members. But that’s down from the 4,000 we had in San Francisco alone before the bridges were built.
Published: October, 2001
Member, WTA Board
What is the IBU?
We’re the largest inland maritime union on the West Coast. We were founded in San Francisco in 1918 as the Ferryboatmen’s Union of California, later renamed the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific (the IBU). Our Union extends from Alaska to Washington, including Oregon, California and Hawaii. Altogether, we have about 4,000 members. But that’s down from the 4,000 we had in San Francisco alone before the bridges were built.
What do IBU people do?
We’re deckhands on ferries and tugboats, tankermen (who load and discharge petroleum products on barges), engineers, cooks, bartenders, and captains. But, ferry riders are probably most familiar with the deckhands and captains. We’re the largest union representing people who work on ferry boats but we also represent workers in the dredging, marine construction and bridge building industries. We have shore side s folks working on the Columbia River in warehouses for the paper companies, as well as ferry ticket agents, terminal assistants and terminal supervisors.
What are the issues you’re concerned with?
Our key issues are good wages and the safety of our members. A crucial safety issue is the heavy gangways at Pier ½ that our members have to lift. Most of our injuries in the ferry industry occur handling gangways. We worked to make sure that they would be hydraulically operated at the new ferry terminal.
In the towing industry, manning and fatigue are our prime concerns. We have suffered severe manning reductions over the years, making it difficult to get enough rest while living and working on board tugs.
My responsibilities include political work at the local, state and national level. One of the issues we worked hardest on was requiring tug escorts for oil tankers coming into San Francisco Bay. Our members worked in Alaska cleaning up after the oil spill. A lot of them sent back photographs of the devastation. After almost 30 years of trying to get tug escorts, and 5 regional directors later, we thought the time was right to convince legislators that there should be safeguards in case a ship lost it’s steering. It took us two more years, but out of it came a requirement that tankers and barges have to have tug escorts.
How did you get to be Regional Director?
I was a ticket agent in Larkspur when I started out in 1976 (the month the Larkspur Ferry Terminal opened) with the ferry division. I went to work for the union in 1979 as a staff member. In 1989, I ran for Regional Director for the first time.
What’s your job like?
I live in Santa Rosa, so I’m on my way about 5am. Sometimes, I stop by our job sites on the way into work. We’ve got a new boat at Golden Gate Ferry, for example, so the other day I stopped by and made sure everything’s going okay. Once I’m in the office, the phone is ringing constantly.
We run a daily hiring hall to dispatch relief jobs. Regular employees working on ferries and tugs will from time to time be off for vacation, out sick, or on a leave of absence. We maintain a qualified pool of "casuals" that work for all of our companies. They report to the hiring hall each day to be dispatched out of our hall to fill these vacancies. We have set up an IBU Basic Seamanship class and an Advanced Seamanship Class for our casuals.
Another important part of my job is organizing new members, negotiating contracts and enforcing them. We just finished negotiating a first contract for 36 new members at Marine Aggregate Services, a sand mining company. Getting the workers "a place at the table" with the employer is a great feeling.
Organizing new companies allow us to maintain our hard fought for wages, benefits, and conditions, and is therefore vital to our industry. There are several companies operating non-union in the coastwise petroleum trade, which chips away at our conditions and erodes our contracts.
You are a leader in the fight to preserve maritime activity on SF’s waterfront. How goes the fight?
It’s difficult and frustrating. Look at Pier 1, where Golden Gate Ferry used to berth their boats between runs, at what’s called a layover berth. Well, that area has now been redesignated, in part to make possible what are known as "view corridors".
There are people that believe that because Oakland has such a tremendous container business that San Francisco’s maritime business has seen it day. But people should rethink their perception of what a working waterfront is. Just because you don’t see a big ship there all the time, it’s not O.K. to eliminate maritime facilities. We need these piers for the tugs that protect us from spills, and, of course, ferries, not to mention ships carrying bulk cargo.
Maritime should not become secondary to community access or real estate development. What’s happening on the San Francisco waterfront is that real estate development and housing are crowding out industrial areas essential to maritime activity. When people move close to the waterfront they don’t want noise, lights or any activity at all at certain times.
Maritime jobs shouldn’t be seen as unglamorous. Quite the opposite; they protect our environment, keep people moving and fuel the economy. How many people know that heavy bulk items like sand and flour are delivered by water? You can’t build or bake without sand and flour. If you eliminate more maritime facilities, the prices on these basic items, and more like them, will go way up. And so will pollution, because trucks will have to bring them in from further inland.
What’s it like to be a woman in your position?
It has its drawbacks and it has its assets. It’s taken a while to get the respect of the industry. As a woman in this business, you’re expected to work harder than most.
Describe how you got involved in the process of making WTA happen.
The IBU believes that a comprehensive regional ferry service will result in a renaissance of San Francisco’s waterfront. So from the start I took an active interest in plans for what eventually turned out to be the WTA. I am personally motivated, too, because I’m a commuter, myself. I want a better way of getting to work.
I spent many months attending meetings, watching the process, making sure it went forward. Part of the IBU’s concern is that any regional service coordinate with the existing companies. We have a good working relationship with the existing services.
It was a tough fight getting the legislation passed that established the WTA. I, along with Joe Freitas, was one of the first two appointments to the WTA Board. But along with everyone else, I was disappointed when the Governor vetoed the first attempt to fund it.
Everyone — ferry companies, labor, and environmentalists had come together to support the funding of WTA— but then, to everyone’s surprise, it turned out that the Governor was unhappy with the pot of money it was coming out of.
So we enlisted a great friend of labor, Senator John Burton. He got our $12 Million into an end of session bill – and from the right pot this time. It was supposed to be routine. But from past experience, I’ve found you have to be there just in case they need a final push.
So Bobby Winston and I drove to Sacramento the last day of the session when our bill was taken up. The bill sailed through the Transportation Committee. Something told us that there were still a lot of ways that this could get fouled up. Since it was the final day of the session, it was crucial it be taken up, and passed - that night. Bobby and I waited until almost midnight and sure enough when it went to the Assembly, it failed the first time up. We panicked, but within moments, we got the help of the Port of San Francisco’s lobbyists, Barry Broad, an important labor lobbyist and Cathy Snodgrass, the lobbyist that worked on passage of the original legislation. It passed just a few minutes before the midnight deadline.
I’m enjoying being on the WTA Board. It’s great because it’s where the kind of passion I have can be properly placed. It adds a lot to my already overcrowded schedule, but it’s time well spent. I feel I’m working to make a revitalization of the San Francisco waterfront happen, helping the economy, and relieving congestion. I’m putting my coalition building skills to good use helping my own people and the entire Bay Area.
