By LARRY KANTER

Senior Reporter

James Spinosa has seen quite a bit during his nearly three decades as a union man on L.A.’s waterfront. But nothing prepared the vice president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union for what he saw on a recent “technology trip” to seaports in Europe and on the East Coast.

He was particularly struck by the Port of Rotterdam, which boasts one of the world’s most highly mechanized cargo terminals.

“No drivers on the docks, computers doing the work of many,” Spinosa reported to an audience of about 1,000 longshoremen who gathered for a recent global trade conference at Cal State Long Beach. “It’s hitting us all at once.”

Cushioning his fellow dockworkers from those blows is at the top of the agenda for Spinosa, who is expected to play a major role in the upcoming contract negotiations between the ILWU and its waterfront employers, represented by the Pacific Maritime Association.

Like many ILWU leaders, Spinosa shuns the media and did not return phone calls. He joined the ILWU as a terminal warehouseman in Local 13 in 1969. A year later, he registered as a marine clerk at Local 63, and has since served as both president and vice president of the local.

Late last year, in a move reflecting Spinosa’s clout within the union, he was appointed chairman of the ILWU’s Coast Committee, which directs day-to-day affairs at the West Coast seaports.

That post traditionally had been held by the union’s president, Brian McWilliams. But the moderate McWilliams made the move after a Spinosa-led faction from Southern California attempted to remove him from office and passed a vote of no confidence.

In response to Spinosa’s appointment to the Coast Committee, that vote was rescinded. And as the union prepares for its March caucus, where it will draft its negotiating position, the union appears to have resolved its internal differences. Widespread antipathy to PMA President Joseph N. Miniace also has helped. “We’ve never been so close together,” said Peter Peyton, a member of Local 63.

When contract talks begin in April, Spinosa, who is said to be especially aggressive at the negotiating table, could become a critical player on the thorny issues of technology and productivity.

The situation, according to many in the industry, is akin to that of the early 1960s, when dockworkers and employers signed the landmark Modernization and Mechanization Agreement, which paved the way for containerization, making the ports much more efficient but severely reducing the need for labor.

The challenge for Spinosa will be in finding ways to retain high-paying union jobs in an age when computerization and robotics threaten to bring another technological sea change to the industry and reduce the need for manpower even more.

“We are here to stay,” he assured his fellow dockworkers at the Cal State Long Beach meeting. “They must find a place for us in the future.”