Organized Labor at a New Moment of Reckoning

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Hundreds of ships sit off the Pacific Coast, loaded with tons of perishable produce, as factories relying on just-in-time deliveries run out of time and inventory. The West Coast port shutdown is draining $ 2 billion a day from the US economy. With 10,500 longshoremen locked out of ports from Seattle to San Diego, dock workers claim that employers are trying to cripple their union. Port operators accuse workers of resisting new technology. Is big labor prepared to tackle technology, globalization and the other big issues of the 21st century? We get an update on negotiations, then hear what the dispute means for the union and the American labor movement, from a labor historian, manufacturing representative, and advocates for union and non-union workers. Bill Whitaker of CBS News guest hosts. Newsmaker: Nation Anticipates President Bush-s Speech on Iraq President George Bush spent the weekend at the Bush family summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, conferring with his father about Iraq. James Gerstenzang, White House reporter for the Los Angeles Times- Washington bureau, reports that the former President offered the current President some important behind-the-scenes fatherly counsel. Reporter's Notebook: The Garlic Wars We-re eating more and more of it every year-- three pounds for every American man, woman and child. Yet, despite costly transcontinental shipping and hefty US tariffs, Chinese farmers are happy to feed our growing habit at the expense of their American counterparts. Louis Freedberg, editorial writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has been digging into the simmering, international garlic wars.
Hundreds of ships sit off the Pacific Coast, loaded with tons of perishable produce, as factories relying on just-in-time deliveries run out of time and inventory. The West Coast port shutdown is draining $ 2 billion a day from the US economy. With 10,500 longshoremen locked out of ports from Seattle to San Diego, dock workers claim that employers are trying to cripple their union. Port operators accuse workers of resisting new technology. Is big labor prepared to tackle technology, globalization and the other big issues of the 21st century? We get an update on negotiations, then hear what the dispute means for the union and the American labor movement, from a labor historian, manufacturing representative, and advocates for union and non-union workers.
Bill Whitaker of CBS News guest hosts.
  • Newsmaker: Nation Anticipates President Bush-s Speech on Iraq
    President George Bush spent the weekend at the Bush family summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, conferring with his father about Iraq. James Gerstenzang, White House reporter for the Los Angeles Times- Washington bureau, reports that the former President offered the current President some important behind-the-scenes fatherly counsel.
  • Reporter's Notebook: The Garlic Wars
    We-re eating more and more of it every year-- three pounds for every American man, woman and child. Yet, despite costly transcontinental shipping and hefty US tariffs, Chinese farmers are happy to feed our growing habit at the expense of their American counterparts. Louis Freedberg, editorial writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has been digging into the simmering, international garlic wars.
Since November 1992, Bill Whitaker has reported regularly from Los Angeles for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and other CBS News broadcasts. Lead reporter on the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, Whitaker has also covered virtually all of the major breaking news events in the West, including the Columbine school shooting, the O.J. Simpson trials, the Heaven's Gate mass suicide, the LA earthquake and the El Nino weather phenomenon. Prior to coming to Los Angeles, Whitaker served as CBS News- Tokyo correspondent from 1989-92, and Atlanta correspondent from 1985-89.

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Warren Olney