The misdemeanor arrests [on July 13] were made just west of where port workers were protesting a company they say used Houston laborers to unload a ship laden with steel slabs.
The ship was being unloaded by crews working for Superior Stevedoring Services, a Galveston company licensed in December to work on the island’s public docks.
Protester Earl Nash, a dock worker for 43 years, declined to say whether he was a member of a labor union and said the protest was about the company’s refusal to hire Galveston workers. Union members and workers not belonging to a union were protesting, he said.
Superior Stevedoring Services is the only such company in Galveston without a contract for labor from the International Longshoremen’s Association.