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After Ultra-Ex went union, Pro Mess declared that it was reclassifying its employees as "independent contractors" -- making it illegal for them to unionize. Current employees were encouraged (but not required) to become independent contractors, but for new employees it was mandatory.
In response, the ILWU filed the first in a series of charges against Pro Mess with the National Labor Relations Board, which referees union elections. The NLRB investigated and later issued a complaint saying Pro Mess had offered employees bonuses if they stayed away from the union. The feds also claimed the company had tracked down drivers and interrogated them about the union on company time, and had instigated the independent contractor switchover due to the union organizing.
A union election was held at Pro Mess in fall '99, but the outcome was less than gratifying. When the ballots were counted, the ILWU had won by just two votes. A week later Pro Mess filed its own NLRB charges, alleging union misconduct and refusing to recognize the union. The ILWU counterattacked with more NLRB charges, accusing Pro Mess of threatening to fire pro-union workers.
In other words, the union drive at Pro Mess had plummeted into a bureaucratic, paper-pushing, name-calling hell.
"To let your organizing fall into the [NLRB] pit is death," wrote Fred Pecker, then ILWU Local 6's West Bay business agent, in a union bulletin. "The law is not in our favor, so if we rely solely on legal remedies, we'll hurt ourselves. We need to keep pressure on the company so they have to keep responding to us."
Nato Green was fired up to keep the pressure on. By this time he had become an active organizer at Pro Mess, and had developed a personal grudge against company owner Joel Ritch.
Both Green and Ritch are Jewish -- a fact that Green felt should have made Ritch more sympathetic to the plight of Pro Mess workers. But he wasn't, and Green viewed Ritch, the volunteer treasurer of the influential Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, as a hypocrite.
"It's outrageous that Joel Ritch has employees who are homeless, then he goes out and bills himself as a big philanthropist," says Green.
In February 2000, Green suggested picketing the Jewish Community Center to pressure Ritch to recognize the ILWU. Green made up a sign bearing one of his grandmother's favorite sayings: "It's a shonda to be a gonif, but it's a double shonda for a Jew to be a gonif." Translation: It's shameful to be a thief, but it's twice as shameful to be a Jewish thief. (Despite Green's hybrid Yiddish rhetoric, Ritch has never been accused or convicted of stealing.)
JCC members stopped to debate Green on the street, defending Ritch and criticizing the messengers' decision to target a Jewish organization -- all of which Green enjoyed very much. "It just reminded me of my family," he says.
Seemingly impervious to the strikes and picketing, Pro Mess continued to deny that a majority of its employees wanted anything to do with the ILWU.
But the NLRB had investigated the four charges filed by the ILWU, found them to have merit, and consolidated them into one complaint. The combined complaint was scheduled to go before an administrative law judge in June 2000, at the same time that the wage and overtime lawsuits against Pro Mess were nearing judgment. Pro Mess buckled.
"They had me by the balls," vents Ritch.
Pro Mess settled the lawsuits with a payment of "hundreds of thousands of dollars," according to Ritch, who refuses to be more specific. The company also agreed to recognize the union and hammer out a contract. The union then began making real headway: Grievance procedures were put in place and medical benefits increased. A verifiable pay structure was devised and Pro Mess started paying more overtime. Employees at Speedway made similar gains in their first contract.
The fight at Pro Mess, however, was far from over. In 2001, when it was time to renegotiate, ILWU officials say Pro Mess stalled and the original contract expired. But Pro Mess says it had good reason not to cooperate.
There had been a messy internal shake-up at the ILWU. Fred Pecker, the main ILWU liaison with Pro Mess couriers, had been ousted from office as a result of intramural warfare within Local 6.
The brouhaha started in 2000 when Pecker ran for a spot on the ILWU's International Executive Board. A gruff, no-bullshit sort who's popular with union rank-and-filers (including the messengers), Pecker did not enjoy the support of higher-ups in Local 6, who worked out of the East Bay office in Oakland.
The local's leadership first accused Pecker of campaigning for the international board on work time. Then, two weeks before the election, an anonymous hit mailer went out to Local 6 members. Pecker was accused of using union funds to take a luxury vacation in Mexico -- a charge calculated to infuriate blue-collar guys who work the docks. Pecker demanded an investigation into who sent the hit piece; the culprit, he felt, had to be someone with access to Local 6's database of members' names and addresses.
On Oct. 30, 2000, Pecker was suspended for the alleged improper campaigning, but refused to vacate the union hall at Ninth and Folsom. According to court documents, Local 6 Secretary-Treasurer Hector Valdivia was "threatened with violence" by Pecker when he tried to serve Pecker his suspension papers. Later that day, Pecker allegedly told an East Bay business agent he'd "kick his ass" if anybody tried to remove him from office. A judge granted a temporary restraining order barring Pecker from coming within 50 yards of his union hall or constituents.
But Pecker denied making any threats, and the restraining order was later lifted. A judge awarded Pecker his legal costs against three Local 6 officials. But the conflict was far from over.
