Unionizing will have positive safety effect

Re: “Tacoma port terminal security group, guards at odds over union” (TNT, 3-26).

Sweden-based Securitas tried to scare Tacoma readers into thinking that the sky is falling. But in fact, if security guards at the Maersk terminal located at the port of Tacoma join the ILWU, public safety will be affected – for the better.

The employer untruthfully claimed, “if the longshore union went on strike, then – in this case – the port would be unguarded.”

That’s not true, and Securitas knows it. In reality, any contract negotiated between the employer and guards would limit the guards’ ability to honor a picket line. This scenario has already been tested, when the Pacific Maritime Association members (of which APM terminals is a member) locked out the entire West Coast longshore workforce for 10 days in 2002.

The ILWU security guards working in the ports of Tacoma, Portland and Los Angeles/Long Beach were neither locked out nor did they walk out. The ports remained professionally guarded as always.

As for Securitas’ argument that the guards should not join the longshore workers, again, it knows better. A quick Internet search shows that the ILWU has a long history of negotiating good contracts for security guards up and down the West Coast.

What we’ve seen at these other ports is that the community is better served if the people guarding our ports are treated and trained like professionals. Our community will be safer if Securitas stops fighting with its workers and honors their choice to join the union they want to join. (Mason is communications spokesman for ILWU Local 23.)