Dockworkers Stage ‘Sickout’ on Project Delay

Disgruntled dockworkers staged a nine-hour “sickout” at the Port of Long Beach Monday but returned to work late in the day after an arbitrator declared the protest illegal.

The dockworker action, which did not affect the Port of Los Angeles, temporarily stopped the movement of cargo from nine ships and cost shipping companies about $200,000, port and maritime officials said.

A spokesman for the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union said about 300 workers were ordered off the job to protest a port delay in approving an on-dock rail yard that would create about 16 more union jobs.

Faced with strong opposition from the Long Beach City Council and probable rejection by the council-appointed Harbor Commission, the rail yard expansion was withdrawn by the International Transportation Service terminal Wednesday.

Noise Pollution

City and port officials have said they are concerned that the expansion would create noise pollution for residential neighborhoods through which additional trains would run.

“We’re going to bring home a message to city and port officials,” said Jim North, president of union Local 94.

“There is a company on the waterfront that wants to expand, and they’ve been told they can’t do it,” North said. “To me that’s restraint of trade . . . and it means jobs for us.”

North said the sickout was also meant to let port officials know the union is concerned about the possible loss of jobs because of the opening of the new $62-million Intermodal Container Transfer Facility in Wilmington last month. That 150-acre rail yard was developed by the two ports.

Recently Voted

About 45 workers at the Wilmington yard, four miles north of the two ports, voted recently not to be represented by the Longshoremen’s Union, manager Roger Stiles said.

Monday’s job action left port and shipping industry officials concerned and baffled.

Harbor Commissioner James H. Gray said he did not understand the work stoppage because it concerned the potential gain of so few jobs. Even one top union official who requested anonymity said he thought the sickout was an overreaction to a relatively minor problem.

When dockworkers failed to report for work at 8 a.m. Monday, the shipping industry’s Pacific Maritime Assn. immediately contacted an arbitrator employed by the industry and the union to handle such disputes, said Terry Lane of the maritime association.

By noon, the arbitrator had declared the sickout an illegal work stoppage and ordered the longshoremen to return to work, Lane said.