Following a temporary shutdown, dozens of busy West Coast ports reopened this week as contract tensions between dock employees and management continued to escalate. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents dockworkers, and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represent port terminal operators, have been sparring over a 14-week slowdown that has affected cargo from cars to electronics to logoed apparel. Trade groups, lawmakers and federal mediators have all urged the two sides to reach an agreement, although negotiations appear to have only gotten more contentious in recent weeks.
We are “increasingly hearing from companies and industries whose business operations are being adversely affected by the serious slowdown surrounding the labor contract negotiations at the West Coast ports,” said Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “This is now a growing crisis that is impacting farmers, retailers, and manufacturers throughout the country, as well as trucking and railroad companies who have far less cargo to move.”
Officials from the ILWU and the PMA again traded barbs in the press this week. “Employers are deliberately worsening the existing congestion crisis to gain the upper hand at the bargaining table,” said ILWU president Robert McEllrath in a statement. Countered PMA spokesperson Wade Gates: “After three months of union slowdowns, it makes no sense to pay extra for less work.”
(asicentral)
The Pacific Maritime Association, the group representing employers, said it will stop vessel operations Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday because they don’t want to pay upcoming weekend and holiday shifts for what they consider “severely diminished productivity” by members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents 20,000 dockworkers, including those who work at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Yard, gate and rail operations will continue at the discretion of terminal operators, while ship operation night shifts have remained suspended since Jan. 13. On non-holiday weekdays, terminal operators in Southern California will expand daytime vessel operations.
According to PMA, longshore workers can earn at least 50 percent more pay for working weekends and holidays, adding that longshore workers and clerks stand to make $54 to $75 per hour, while foremen can make between $77 and $92 per hour.
“Last week, PMA made a comprehensive contract offer designed to bring these talks to conclusion,” PMA spokesman Wade Gates said in a statement. “The ILWU responded with demands they knew we could not meet, and continued slowdowns that will soon bring West Coast ports to gridlock. What they’re doing amounts to a strike with pay, and we will reduce the extent to which we pay premium rates for such a strike.”
(Press-Telegram)
This is pretty normal, and it's one of the things that makes it hard to unilaterally support either side in labor disputes like this. We already know that dockworkers are very well paid, and that's apparently not a bone of contention. But what's the deal with the arbitrators? Who has the better of the argument? There's no telling.
The public probably doesn't care much about this unless it eventually gets nasty enough that it affects the ability of stores to keep stuff in stock. So maybe public opinion doesn't matter. But to the extent it does, it sure seems like unions would have a better chance of getting public support if they were more forthcoming about exactly what it is they're holding out for.
(Mother Jones)
Now, the PMA is shutting down operations for Thursday through Monday this weekend after a previous shutdown the first week of February, further backing up incoming and outgoing cargo.
Todd Fryhover, president of the Washington Apple Commission, Wenatchee, said that the dispute has likely cost growers and exporters nearly 300 containers per week in lost apple export sales.
Shippers haven’t been able to take full advantage of a record crop and demand for the fruit from Pacific Rim countries. It is already too late to ship fruit to the Far East in time to meet demand for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
“Growers will suffer because of the lack of opportunity,” Fryhover said.
California citrus growers have lost 25% of their potential export sales of $500 million because of the dispute, according to California Citrus Mutual.
“Fruit is rotting on the docks, sales are being canceled by the customer and our industry has slowed its harvesting so as not to place matured fruit into the market place,” CCM’s Joel Nelsen recently said in a news release.
Chilean grape shipments to the West Coast are being held back, and outbound potato exports to Japan have reportedly been cut back to an extent that McDonalds and KFC in Japan have suspended servings of fries.
CNBC reports that a Kurt Salmon analysis shows congestion at West Coast ports could cost U.S. retailers as much as $7 billion this year.
Members of Congress have been contacted, governors have been lobbied and nothing is happening. Who does the industry yell at to get this solved?
(The Packer)
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