Port Pilots Pact OKd; Strike Ends

The Los Angeles City Council approved a new contract agreement Tuesday with the tiny union of port pilots, raising salaries by about 9.5% annually for 3 1/2 years and bringing an end to the employees’ 4-month-old strike.

Under terms of the settlement, which the council unanimously approved in a closed session, the 16 port pilots’ annual salaries will jump from $113,712 to $122,376 when they return to work. By January 2001, when the last increase under the contract will occur, the pilots will be making $140,571.

Although city officials said they were pleased to finally have an agreement, they said both sides were forced to compromise to end the strike that began July 11. The pilots, who guide ships through the busy Los Angeles Harbor, were expected to ratify the agreement Tuesday evening and could return to work by the end of the week.

“Now we can get back to the primary business of the port of Los Angeles--which is moving cargo,” said Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., whose district includes the port. “There was a lot of hard bargaining. . . . I think any time you’ve had labor strife for four months, that’s four months too long.”

Council President John Ferraro agreed, saying in a statement, “It’s just too bad it took so long.”

The city’s Harbor Commission also approved the contract settlement in a closed session earlier Tuesday in San Pedro.

But although union negotiators said they too were relieved to have the strike drawing to a close, they said they still believe the pilots should make more money.

“The pilots will still be significantly underpaid in comparison to the pilots in other comparable ports,” said Elizabeth Garfield, who represented the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 68. But, she said, “The city is agreeing to pay them more than what they’d offered earlier and are at least beginning to recognize the value and the hazards involved.”

The pilots had asked for a 72% pay hike, bringing their salaries to $195,000 over a two-year period. The city originally had offered a top salary of $133,235. And Svorinich had offered his own proposal, rejected by the council, that would have raised salaries to $159,225 plus a $12,000 hazard pay bonus.

Port officials struck a celebratory note Tuesday, saying city negotiators worked out a deal that did not require Los Angeles to give much more than under its original proposal.

“We thought we had a correct position,” said Larry Keller, the port’s executive director. “I think it’s something we can live with.”

But aside from the money, Garfield and others said major gains were won in the contract. The pilots, for example, obtained the right to maintain their jobs and their contract if the city decides--and the union agrees--to privatize the service.

That provision was a major sticking point, Garfield said. “We never would have agreed to the contract without that,” she said.

Los Angeles is the only major port in the country where pilots are on the government payroll; in other harbors, like San Francisco, the pilots act as independent contractors, taking salaries based on the year’s profits.

Despite the early focus in the contract talks on the possibility of privatizing the nation’s only municipal pilot service, Keller said he is “not any kind of a fan” of the idea, although a consultant estimated it could save the city money.

“Frankly, if we wanted to privatize, we would’ve done it during or before the strike,” he said.

He said, however, that he would examine whether the port needs its full complement of 16 pilots and that he may allow it to shrink through attrition. Shippers reported that traffic moved at almost normal rates during the strike, while the port had only five working pilots.

“You’re very tempted to say, ‘We may not need 15 or 16.’ But we weren’t operating under normal conditions either,” Keller said.

From July through September, the port paid the five working pilots $130,334 for the extra time they put in to keep vessels moving.

Shippers said that they were pleased the strike appeared to be resolved but that it had not affected them as much as railroad line congestion in recent weeks.

“On the whole, it was just an inconvenience,” said Jay Winter, executive secretary of the Steamship Assn. of Southern California. “It calls into question the manning levels that have been in place. If four or five people essentially could keep the port going, something must have been a little off.”

The pact calls for the city to pay accidental death and dismemberment insurance and more than 50% of the pilots’ disability insurance. The city also agreed to provide a safety and training program.