41.pilots/4″/mike1st/mark2nd

No. 41

Port Pilots Sign New Contract

It had to have been the strangest strike in L.A. history. In July of 1997, the tiny harbor pilots union at the Port of Los Angeles, whose members are responsible for steering ships to their berths, walked off the job in a dispute over pay. For six months, two pilots did the work of 14, slowing harbor operations significantly and causing untold headaches for the nation’s importers and exporters who rely on efficient port operations to move their merchandise.

The pilots returned to work in December 1997 after several months of heated negotiations with port officials, which included the filing of an unfair labor practices complaint against port chief Larry Keller. They finally signed their new contract in July, which raises annual salaries from the current $113,700 to $140,600 by 2001.

For the trade community, the labor dispute was powerful evidence of what can happen when the waterfront labor unions flex their muscles. The contract signing brought a sigh of relief that the disruptions caused by the 1997 walkout would not be repeated. The port pilots’ dispute also raises the specter of what could happen this year, with the contract between shipping lines and thousands of dockworkers expiring in July.

Larry Kanter