Contract negotiations between shippers and the union representing West Coast dock workers started off with a peaceful tone Monday, when both sides met in San Francisco for talks on a new three-year agreement, the Daily Breeze reports.
Representatives from the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union launched formal negotiations aimed at improving employee safety and maintaining port jobs for some 26,000 unionized longshore workers, marine clerks and foremen in California, Oregon and Washington.
About 20,000 of the ILWU members work at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
“We’re off to a good start and look forward to a successful agreement in the process,” said Craig Merrilees, an ILWU spokesman.
Both sides spent most of the day hammering out ground rules and discussing the union’s concerns. PMA and ILWU representatives are scheduled to meet again today and through most of the week to discuss the concerns of shippers, who have signaled a desire to eliminate an early morning dock worker shift and reduce health care costs.
“It was a very businesslike first meeting,” said Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the PMA, a consortium of shipping companies operating along the West Coast.
“Both sides have agreed on one thing,” Getzug said. “We agreed that now that negotiations are under way, what happens at the table will stay at the table.”
The ILWU’s current six-year contract is set to expire July 1.
