Cargo Business Newswire

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Top Story

Industry groups to PMA and ILWU: Resolve West Coast labor dispute

On Friday, approximately 175 U.S. trade groups representing retailers, manufacturing, and farmers, sent a letter to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, asking them to get their act together and agree to a contract.

"As customers of your ports, and industries affected by their operations, our members desperately need this negotiation to be concluded and operations returned to normal levels of through-put," the business groups said.

"Supply chains across all of our industry sectors have already been adversely impacted due to events far beyond our control over the past several months," the letter said. "It is a black eye for the broader economy and some jobs have and will continue to be lost as a result of continued delays at the ports."

A federal mediator joined contract talks in early January. Over the past couple weeks, West Coast port employers have cut night shifts at the ports.

"Reducing vessel cranes during the night will help us continue to clear out the yards, where with ILWU has been withholding certain skills," said a PMA spokesman.

The union said the move was meant to deliberately worsen congestion problems to put more pressure on the talks.

"The employer is making nonsensical moves like cutting back on shifts at a critical time, creating gridlock in a cynical attempt to turn public opinion against workers," said ILWU President Bob McEllrath in a statement last week. "This creates an incendiary atmosphere during negotiations and does nothing to get us closer to an agreement."

The PMA said: "Unfortunately, despite our sense of urgency in resolving the contract talks and getting our ports moving again, the union's slowdowns continue and the resulting operational environment is no longer sustainable."

The ILWU countered: "The congestion problem at west coast ports pre-dates any accusations of slowdowns, and stems from industry decisions that are causing delays for customers and making work more difficult and dangerous for dockworkers. It is unfortunate that port employers recently decided to curtail port operations and reduce hours at a time when customers are already suffering from delays."

If the labor conflict at West Coast ports becomes a shutdown or strike, it will take a heavy toll on the U.S. economy. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach alone employ about 15,000 full-time and part-time workers, according to Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles.

In addition, nearly 900,000 truck drivers, dockworkers, warehouse employees and others throughout Southern California are directly or indirectly tied to operations at the ports, according to Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

For more of the CNBC story: www.cnbc.com

For more of the Daily Breeze story: www.dailybreeze.com