A Working Waterfront that Works for Everyone

Download the September 2008 issue in PDF format

By Lorena Gonzalez, Secretary-Treasurer

For 43 years, Raymond Leyba has unloaded ships at the 10th Avenue Marine Terminal.  It’s not a glamorous job, the days can be long and hot and the cargo heavy. But Raymond takes tremendous pride in his work as a union longshoreman. He followed in the footsteps of his father, embarking on a career that, while tough and dangerous, provided a modest income.

Thanks to his union job on the docks, Raymond has been able to raise a family, own a house and send his children to school. Like his father, Raymond never wanted to look for a hand out, just the opportunity to work hard and join the ranks of San Diego’s middle-class.

Unfortunately, stories like Raymond’s, are becoming harder and harder to find.  Too many of our region’s good, middle-class industrial jobs have been replaced by lower-paying service level jobs, especially along our waterfront. And for far too long, those tourism-spurred jobs have been allowed to spread without the worker protections and benefits that helped make our traditional waterfront jobs the core of San Diego’s economy.

San Diego’s workers and their families have had enough of this spiral into the economic pit. 
This Labor Day celebrates our movement to take back our waterfront.  While millions of Americans will spend the three-day holiday at the beach or a barbecue enjoying the unofficial end of the summer, San Diego’s labor community will be rallying to ensure that our region’s public land along the waterfront provides true community benefits, including quality jobs, environmental sustainability and public access.

Our public tidelands belong to all Californians, not just developers who are only looking for a quick dollar.  When developed, these public bay-front lands should be a catalyst for regional economic stability.  The Port of San Diego has done just that with their commitment to maritime trade and a working waterfront.

Our 10th Avenue Marine Terminal currently generates more than $1.8 billion a year for our regional economy, and provides 19,000 jobs that pay good, middle-class wages with health care and a small retirement. It is essential that we protect these jobs and this valuable vehicle for economic stability.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t allow for tourism-related development in other areas of our Bay.  Tourism is an essential component to San Diego, and has an integral place in our diversified economy.
 
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the workers in our hotels and restaurants reap equitable benefits from their hard work like we have in the industrial workforce.  Instead of contributing to a robust labor force, these hotels are creating an underclass of service workers who are expected to perform an inordinate amount of work for little more than minimum wage and must rely upon public assistance for healthcare and other needs.

For example, in some non-union hotels, the hotel attendants are expected to clean upwards of 30 rooms per shift, earning on average of $8.15 an hour with no healthcare. The public takes a hit twice when workers are paid these meager wages at our harborside hotels, as it’s the taxpayers who subsidize the hoteliers’ leases of some of the most spectacular land on the West Coast while picking up the tab for the public programs used by their underpaid employees.

San Diego should look up the coast to San Francisco to find a community that has made sustainable jobs in the city’s tourism industry a priority. Hotel employees typically earn between $15 and $19 an hour with a small retirement plan and with no significant impact to the industry’s bottom line. Room taxes there are higher than San Diego and occupancy rates and prices are similar to our market. Why can’t San Diego’s hoteliers seem to make the livelihoods of their employees a priority?

The public has waited long enough for an answer to that question. That’s why hotel patrons are refusing to cross the picket lines at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, where the owner has decided to use his largesse to divide the community by funding a discriminatory ballot measure instead of committing to responsible business practices that truly create a balanced economy on the waterfront.

San Diegans are watching our local leaders on every decision regarding our treasured public lands on San Diego Bay. They recognize that our community has benefitted greatly because of our harbor, but they also realize that our potential can be so much greater.

Bayside development must be constructed with fair-wage, local jobs that offer opportunities to train the upcoming generation of skilled-trades workers. Employees at hotels and meeting facilities that succeed because of their public leaseholds and prime waterfront location must have the right to choose union representation without the tactics of intimidation by management. Any new development on the waterfront must ensure public access to the bay, real environmental mitigation to keep our bay clean, and responsible planning to safeguard against the potential diminishment of the economic engine that is our working waterfront.  This Labor Day, let’s take back our waterfront for all of San Diego.