West Coast longshore union braces for bankruptcy, unnerving labor nationally
SAN FRANCISCO - The union that handles every shipping container that crosses West Coast docks is bracing for bankruptcy. It's a rare prospect for a bargaining group, and it's rattling organized labor nationally.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union traces its roots to a 1934 strike that claimed the lives of two men commemorated by silhouettes marked on a sidewalk in front of Local 10, the organization's San Francisco chapter. The ILWU's motto - "An injury to one is an injury to all" - attests to the wariness and solidarity of its 15,000 waterfront members, handsomely compensated blue-collar workers already threatened by port automation.
Few of those workers could have imagined that an obscure feud over two dockside jobs in Portland, Ore., would jeopardize the whole union, whose members
