The Shipping News

In the second week of a shutdown that has closed 29 ports on the West Coast and is costing the U.S. economy upwards of $1 billion a day, the Bush administration amplified its involvement in the dispute between the International Longshore & Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, by forming a "board of inquiry."

This is the administration's likely first step toward invoking the controversial Taft-Hartley Act, which would force union workers back to work for an 80-day cooling off period. (...)

And while many politicians are ready to use federal authority to control the docks due to the current economic implications, labor still has friends in Congress. In an attempt to dissuade Congress members from supporting federal intervention, California Democrat George Miller wrote that, "Taft-Hartley is rarely employed and is properly viewed as an aggressively anti-union weapon for undermining the collective bargaining rights of working people." [read more]

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Bush Invokes Taft-Hartley Act to Open West Coast Ports

President Bush intervened in the 11-day shutdown of 29 West Coast ports today, successfully seeking a court order today to halt the employers' lockout of 10,500 longshoremen, because the operation of the ports is "vital to our economy and to our military." [read more]