Federal Inquiry Opens Into Hiring of Longshoremen : Labor: Vietnam-era veterans and disabled workers in Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors say they have been passed over for full-time jobs.

The U.S. Department of Labor has opened an investigation into the hiring of longshoremen in the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors amid allegations that full-time employment opportunities have been denied to Vietnam-era veterans and part-time longshoremen injured on the docks.

The inquiry, which began this week, focuses on the association representing waterfront employers and follows almost two years of complaints that hiring practices violate federal laws covering companies with government contracts.

Joe Kirkbride, West Coast spokesman for the Labor Department, said Wednesday that the investigation is being conducted by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in Los Angeles. On Tuesday, he said, two officials of the agency visited the local office of the Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents West Coast shippers and terminal operators in their negotiations with the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union.

For decades, the local has been accused of discriminatory hiring practices by part-time longshoremen and others seeking full-time employment as dockworkers, where pay can average $70,000 a year. Those complaints led in 1983 to a federal court order requiring the 4,000-member union to open employment opportunities to women and minorities.

The federal investigation, however, focuses on the Pacific Maritime Assn. because of charges by three dozen Vietnam-era veterans and part-time dockworkers that the association has ignored affirmative action laws governing companies with federal contracts.

The accusation has been denied by Pacific Maritime officials.

The Labor Department investigation stems from accusations, first made in 1989, that the association has violated the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam-era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 by not making reasonable accommodations to hire and promote veterans and the handicapped.

“They haven’t done a thing for us,” said Chuck Fairchild, 49, of San Pedro.

In 1982, after almost 20 years as a part-time dockworker, Fairchild suffered a cervical spine injury when he was struck in the head by a 40-pound crate at the Port of Los Angeles. The injury, Fairchild says, has left him without work on the docks since 1987 because no accommodation has been made to find him jobs that would not aggravate his injury.

Similarly, Bernardo Bielma and his brother George, Vietnam-era veterans from Wilmington, contend they have been passed over for full-time jobs as longshoremen in favor of women, minorities and even teen-agers straight out of high school despite years of part-time experience on the docks.

“They’ve given us the runaround,” said Bernardo Bielma, 42, who says he has about 10,000 hours of experience as a part-time dockworker since 1971. “The way they have treated us is so bad. It is like they spit on us.”

But Pacific Maritime officials, who Tuesday turned over records of full-time dockworkers hired since 1988, insist that they have not violated any federal laws in working with the dockworkers union to supply longshoremen and clerks in the harbor.

Further, association officials including Assistant Area Manager Vince LaMaestra contend that the association cannot be held liable for hiring practices in the ports because it is an agent of waterfront shippers and other companies, not an employer.

“The key issue is who employs the workers,” said LaMaestra.

That question has loomed significant since the investigation was first urged by the Vietnam-era veterans and injured longshoremen in June, 1989, according to Labor Department officials and government records.

In January, 1990, for example, a West Coast official with the Labor Department concluded that the agency had no jurisdiction over the dispute because it could find no evidence of government contracts with Pacific Maritime.

But after the matter was referred to the solicitor of labor’s office in Washington, federal officials last September determined that an investigation could begin to resolve the question of jurisdiction and examine allegations that Pacific Maritime had violated federal affirmative action laws.

Later, when the investigation failed to materialize, the longshoremen contacted U.S. Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who chairs the Senate subcommittee on labor, and Rep. Glenn M. Anderson (D-San Pedro), in an effort to prod the federal agency into action. Though several months again passed, Labor Department officials finally opened their investigation, meeting with the longshoremen to outline their investigation late last month.

“It does seem like a delay in getting started, but the best I can say is that the agency was trying to work out what it had to show to prove jurisdiction in the case,” said Kirkbride, the Labor Department spokesman.

Within the next several weeks, he said, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs officials hope to make a determination on the department’s jurisdiction and, if necessary, refer the matter to another federal or state agency for investigation.

In the meantime, he said, the department is proceeding with its investigation.