IMPORTANT as it may be, the struggle over how to work is only one front in a larger battle for control of the waterfront. Formulating and interpreting contractual language is another theater in this war. Despite fifty years of collective bargaining, and almost thirty years after the M&M Agreements were signed, the differences between Local 10 and the PMA are so deep that the two sides operate with different vocabularies; they do not even agree on the very language specifying the terms of their cooperation. When the collective agreement is being formulated, they battle over whose language will be used; when it is signed, the struggle continues, and the issue becomes whose understanding of the contract will prevail? Thus, even though they live by the same contractual language, they battle over the naming of disputed activities. These disagreements surface in two contexts: in contract negotiations, where contractual language is constructed; and in the grievance machinery, where operating definitions of disputed activities are contested.