Cargo Flowing as Port Labor Talks Go Past Deadline

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Cargo Flowing as Port Labor Talks Go Past Deadline

By DAVID GREENBERG

Staff Reporter

Jack Suite recalls that during contentious contract talks with West Coast dockworkers in 1999, recorded messages at the dispatch hall for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach advised union members to take it easy.

“They don’t outright announce on that tape that they’re going to have a slowdown,” said Suite, manager of contract administration for the Pacific Maritime Association. “They typically use code words: ‘Work safe. It’s dangerous to drive fast on the terminals. So it’s very important to slow down and work safe.'”

To this day, officials of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union deny that a slowdown took place even though PMA officials said there was a 20-50 percent reduction in productivity per port as the negotiations stretched two weeks past the 1999 deadline.

Slowdown or not, things were a lot different last week, as the July 1 deadline came and went without a contract in place. This time, when union members called the dispatch hall, the taped message was, “We still got a job. We still got a job. So come on down and work.”

Both sides said they would extend the contract on a day-by-day basis, and there were strong indications that negotiations could drag on for weeks.

Talks were not scheduled for the July 4 holiday and the union was planning to take July 5 off from negotiations as it commemorated the Bloody Thursday riots of 1934, which galvanized the movement to form the ILWU. Talks were scheduled to resume July 8.

Strike fallout

“Productivity continues to be normal, which is what we’d expect since the union agreed to the extension of the contract,” said Suite. “We continue to bargain.”

For weeks, union members in L.A. and Long Beach had been hinting that a strike was imminent. (International Trade Club vice president Ray Hovart said one of his San Pedro neighbors, a ILWU foreman, offered to bet him $100 last week that the union would soon walk off the job.)

But threats aside, the union is not so anxious to strike. Not yet, anyway.

This despite that fact that the most controversial issue in the talks implementation of technology at the ports was not even broached until six weeks after negotiations commenced.

The only strike-related move the ILWU has implemented is to assess each member $100 per month from February through June, creating a strike fund of $525,000 that would be dispersed in the event of a work stoppage.

“The ILWU did not take any vote and did not send out ballots,” said Steven Stallone, the ILWU’s communications director. “We did not enter these negotiations with any kind of threat,” said Steven Stallone, the ILWU’s communications director. “This is the thing that really annoys me. Everybody is talking about a strike that’s not happening.”

The union caucus authorized the assessment after the PMA in January announced it had established a $200 million line of credit for what it calls general business purposes but what the union interpreted as a strike fund.

The lack of other strike preparations by the union gives the PMA some breathing room. Before a strike is authorized, the union must send out ballots to its members, a process that could take up to six weeks. After approval by union leaders to print and send out ballots, membership would be given ample time to debate the issue at their local charters before mailing in their ballots, which would be tabulated by an independent firm.

Militant reputation

Belying the ILWU’s militant reputation, this year its strategy is less combative than the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is negotiating a new pact to replace the five-year agreement with the United Parcel Service.

The 210,000 UPS employees in May gave a 93 percent approval for its negotiating committee to call a strike if talks break down after the contract expires July 31.

“That certainly sends a message to management that the members are serious about getting a good contract and they are behind the negotiating committee,” said Brian Rainville, the Teamsters’ assistant communications director.

But dockworkers don’t live paycheck to paycheck. Average annual wages with overtime total $83,000 for longshoremen, $118,000 for clerks and $158,000 for foremen.

“People can’t drum up sympathy for a union that gets about $42,000 a year (per worker) in paid health benefits,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

There may be another factor behind the union’s decision to keep working. Earlier this year, PMA President and Chief Executive Joe Miniace vowed to institute the first-ever lockout of West Coast ports if he saw productivity decline, which he maintains can be more costly than shutting down the ports. Last week, the association stepped back from that threat, saying it would merely consider a shutdown.

But the point had been made a shutdown is possible perhaps causing some more militant union members to think twice before advocating a production slowdown.

“The PMA taking out a line of credit means they were serious about locking out the ILWU if there are the usual slowdowns,” said Kyser. “It showed the union they couldn’t push as hard as they normally do. They are more cautious then in past negotiations. By locking (the union) out, their members lose income.”

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