Spinosa striving to preserve the union. (Butting Heads).

James Spinosa is anything but a neophyte when it comes to negotiating contracts with the Pacific Maritime Association.

As president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, he successfully negotiated the ILWU's most recent contract in 1999 while simultaneously warding off attempts by maritime management to implement technology at West Coast ports that the union claims will eliminate jobs.

Again chairman of the negotiations committee charged with hammering out an agreement with the PMA, Spinosa does not back down from a fight -- not unlike the union's legendary founder, Harry Bridges. But those who know him agree he never formulates goals without input from his 13-person negotiations committee

"He is, as he calls himself, a committee man," said Steve Stallone, the ILWU's spokesman. "He's the kind of guy who moves (by) consensus. That's just the way he works."

Spinosa's rise to the top of one of the nation's most powerful unions has its roots in Los Angeles, where he began his career as a casual terminal warehouseman at Local 13 in 1969. Within a year, he was a marine clerk at Local 63, earning his full-time union membership four years later that ensured he would be among the first to be issued work assignments.

From 1984 though 1987, Locals 13, 63 and 94 (the San Pedro office overseeing foremen) hired Spinosa as their Southern California container freight station monitor.

At a time when management was hiring non-union workers to load and unload some container cargo off dock. Spinosa managed to track down the goods and through the arbitration process, bring 80 percent of the cargo back to ILWU jurisdiction.

He also helped coordinate a container tracking program to ensure that union members at other docks would not lose work.

Spinosa's efforts earned him election as vice president of Local 63 in 1987. president of the local in 1988 and 1989, vice president again in 1990 and president again in 1991.

With the PMA pushing for computerized work assignment and container tracking systems that likely would eliminate some clerks positions, union officials said no one is more qualified to minimize the bloodletting than Spinosa.

"He's not afraid of technology," said Mike Podue, vice president of Local 63. "But certain jobs will be outsourced to other states and possibly other countries -- out of the jurisdiction of the ILWU. He understands that those jobs need to stay here with our work force. The clerks as a whole embrace technology but we don't want other people doing our work."

Spinosa served a three-year tenure as California Coast Committeeman, which helps negotiate and administer contracts up and down the West Coast before being elected vice president of the union in 1997. He also has been a member of the union caucus since 1984.

His son, James II, is a former Local 13 longshoreman and currently a Local 94 foreman while his daughter, Natalie, is a casual laborer at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.