Alleged Job Bias on Docks Investigated

The U.S. Department of Labor has opened an investigation into allegations that Vietnam-era veterans and part-time longshoremen are being denied full-time jobs in Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors.

The inquiry, which began this week, focuses on the association representing waterfront employers and comes after 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 visited the local office of the Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents West Coast shippers and terminal operators in contract negotiations with the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union.

For decades, the ILWU’s local chapter 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.

But the latest federal probe focuses on the employers association because of charges by three dozen Vietnam-era veterans and part-time dockworkers that it has ignored affirmative action laws governing companies with federal contracts.

Pacific Maritime officials deny the charges.

The Labor Department investigation stems from accusations, first made in 1989, that Pacific Maritime has violated both the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam-Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 by not making reasonable efforts to hire and promote veterans and the disabled.

“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 spine injury when he was struck in the head by a 40-pound crate in the Port of Los Angeles. The injury, Fairchild says, has left him without work on the docks since 1987 because no effort 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 that they have been passed over for full-time jobs as longshoremen in favor of women and minorities despite their 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 ILWU to supply longshoremen and clerks in the harbor.

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