Technology Tops Agenda as Port Labor Talks Begin
After three years of labor tension and court battles, shipping companies and the powerful dockworkers union this week will begin contract negotiations over basic working conditions and further modernization of America’s West Coast ports, including Los Angeles and Long Beach.
People in the shipping industry compare the issues on the table to those hashed out in the historic 1961 agreement that hastened the spread of technology and labor-saving innovations, particularly the use of cargo containers.
This time it is automation, computers and new rail projects that will speed cargo from ships to inland freight yards and storage areas.
The Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents shipping lines and terminal operators, maintains that the negotiations are critical to improving the productivity and dependability of the waterfront labor force.
Association representatives say they hope to engage in substantive discussions about the use of technology on the docks and ways to avoid repeating the scores of costly work stoppages that followed the 1996 labor contract.
“Our main issues are productivity and reliability,” said Joseph N. Miniace, president of the Pacific Maritime Assn. “Shipping companies and union members must understand that the customer is the No. 1 concern. We don’t want them looking at other means of transportation or other ports.”
Among the issues critical to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union are increases in pension and medical benefits as well as the union’s jurisdiction--the number of port-related jobs that fall under its control.
Union officials say that if modernization continues, steps must be taken to preserve ILWU positions and expand the organization’s jurisdiction beyond port boundaries.
The union contends that the organization lost jobs after the so-called mechanization and modernization agreement took effect almost 40 years ago.
“Employers must be made to understand that when they make technological changes, they must bring us along,” said ILWU Vice President James Spinosa, the union’s chief negotiator. “To live in yesterday’s world will only prove to be disastrous.”
Pact Would Affect 10,000 Workers
The maritime association and the union will begin discussing a new three-year contract for almost 10,000 dockworkers in Washington, Oregon and California. About 5,200 ILWU members work in Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest combined port in the United States.
Longshore workers on the West Coast earn $60,000 to $100,000 a year, depending on their skills and rank. Wages can go higher for heavy equipment operators, dock bosses and marine clerks who track cargo.
The Pacific Maritime Assn., which is the longshore union’s counterpart, negotiates and administers labor contracts on behalf of more than 100 members, including shipping firms, stevedoring companies and owners of cargo terminals.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union has about 60,000 members in the United States and Canada. Among them are cannery workers in Alaska and agricultural and tourist industry employees in Hawaii.
If the talks go smoothly, the new contract will take effect July 1. Both organizations have been intensely preparing their demands over the past few months. For strategic reasons, both sides declined to discuss specifics of their positions.
The association and longshore union come to the bargaining table after several years of court fights and political rancor. How much the discord will adversely affect negotiations and disrupt West Coast ports is subject to speculation.
Last year, there was fear that the West Coast might be headed toward its first dock strike since 1971. But association representatives and union members say tensions appear to have eased since then.
Within the union itself, longshore locals in Southern California have repeatedly tried to remove ILWU President Brian McWilliams and neutralize his power. The locals issued a vote of no confidence in the president and demanded that he take a leave of absence for the remainder of his term.
Among other things, sources said, longshore workers in Southern California disagreed with McWilliams’ decision to end lucrative side deals that shipping companies used to attract and retain skilled workers such as crane operators.
Those incentives, which were prohibited by the 1996 contract, included shortened workweeks with full-time pay. Some of the deals continue today.
Despite strong opposition, McWilliams has refused to relinquish his post. However, he has been replaced as chief negotiator by Spinosa, a Southern California longshoreman who led the effort against him.
The union’s internal conflicts coincided with a series of sharp attacks by Pacific Maritime, which has targeted the productivity and reliability of longshore workers.
Miniace, a labor relations specialist who worked for Ford Motor Co. and Ryder System Inc., has led the assault in public and in court. Association officials say he was hired in 1996 to bring change to the shipping industry and check the power of the longshore union.
Miniace says that productivity, measured by tons of cargo handled per hour paid, has either stagnated or declined in each of the last four years. Association statistics show that tons per hour paid from 1995 to 1998 has dropped from 8.01 to 7.53 on the West Coast.
His greatest fear, Miniace says, is that customers will send their goods through other ports in the United States or Mexico if things don’t improve on the West Coast.
“We must move the industry to the next level,” Miniace said. “Other ports here and around the world have implemented technology that is moving cargo more dependably. We need to start in that direction. There is too much at stake.”
Pacific Maritime contends that part of the problem has been caused by more than 150 work slowdowns and stoppages since 1996 that idled cargo in West Coast ports and cost shippers tens of millions of dollars.
Alleging that the work actions violated the 1996 contract, the association sued in federal court to stop them. The lawsuit was filled with strong language and accused the union of “lawlessness” and “quasi-criminal activities.”
In addition, the association had lodged three other lawsuits against the union and its supporters, seeking injunctions and monetary damages for work stoppages and for honoring picket lines.
Union attorneys claimed that the number of questionable work stoppages was greatly exaggerated and that dockworkers were within their contract rights in taking the actions.
Pacific Maritime did not fare well in court. All the cases were either dismissed quickly or settled with few concessions from the union.
Instead of conceding defeat, Miniace declared victory, saying the lawsuits resulted in fewer work stoppages and improved cooperation between the union and the shipping association.
Now taking a more moderate tack, Miniace says he hopes the new relationship will lead to technological advances on the docks, such as the computers to track cargo in port and replace an antiquated system for assigning jobs to longshore workers.
Union officials say, however, that the union and shipping association are not cooperating as much as Miniace claims. If anything, they say, the attacks have rallied the union membership.
“He has been informed many times that criticizing our organization in the media and taking this union to court has only insulted and infuriated us,” Spinosa said. “While he says he wants a good relationship with the ILWU, his actions show the opposite.”
Union members have taken particular umbrage at Miniace’s claims that longshore workers are mostly responsible for a decline in productivity. They point out that the docks were paralyzed by the Union Pacific rail merger in late 1997 that caused cargo to stack up in port.
They also contend that the volume of empty cargo containers dockworkers must handle has increased substantially because of trade imbalances with Asia.
When contract talks get underway, union officials say they want to discuss basic welfare issues such as improvements in medical benefits and retirement plans, as well as closing the wage gap between the highest- and lowest-paid dockworkers.
Another priority will be the reach of the union’s jurisdiction as technological advances are implemented in the years ahead.
Union officials have seen the modern ports of Antwerp, Belgium; Hamburg, Germany; and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where robotics and electronics threaten to replace many dockworkers.
“We are entering the second stage of the mechanization and modernization agreement. Geographic boundaries in the ports should not enclose our jurisdiction,” Spinosa said. “The technological changes, now as then, must be dealt with.”
Among other things, union officials say the ILWU would like jurisdiction over the maintenance and repair of terminal equipment and vessels, the transport of goods as long as the cargo remains under control of a member of the Pacific Maritime Assn. and the planning of rail shipments from the port.
Union officials say they are concerned about shipping firms moving facilities and jobs inland, such as the storage of shipping containers and clerical positions.
McWilliams said assurances must be obtained because employers have forgotten their commitments to preserve job security under the 1961 mechanization and modernization agreement.
“They have been chipping away at our jurisdiction ever since,” McWilliams said. “The employers act like the . . . agreement is a museum piece. We need to build on the forgotten commitments of the past.”
