Strike Halts Operations at Port of Los Angeles

Striking workers in the Port of Los Angeles shut down the nation’s largest coal export terminal Thursday, amid charges that the operators are trying to undermine contract talks and discriminating against employees who are staunch union supporters.

The action, which began Wednesday night, has halted cargo operations at the Los Angeles Export Terminal, leaving one ship stranded at the dock and several waiting in the harbor to be loaded.

The 115-acre facility off Ferry Street on Terminal Island handles about 5 million tons of coal and petroleum coke a year, much of it bound for Asian markets. The material is unloaded from trains and trucks in the storage yard and loaded onto ships via an enormous conveyor system.

About 40 workers, represented by Local 13 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, walked off the job Wednesday evening after union attorneys lodged five charges of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board. The agency investigates alleged violations of federal labor law.

The workers are employed at the facility’s main storage yard, where the coal is unloaded and prepared for shipment.

Their strike continued Thursday backed by longshore workers who refused to load ships at the terminal’s wharf. Terminal operators had challenged the dockworkers’ actions, but an arbitrator ruled shortly before midnight Wednesday that they have the right to honor the strikers’ picket lines.

Ray Familathe, an executive board member of Local 13, said: “The operator of this facility is violating our rights as workers. Management has made no secret of their distaste for unions.”

Operations in the terminal’s storage areas are run by Savage Pacific Services based in Utah. Savage Pacific contracts with the Los Angeles Export Terminal, which has corporate offices in San Pedro. The facility is owned by a consortium of 37 public and private investors, including the Port of Los Angeles.

Union attorneys charge that Savage Pacific has discriminated against union supporters in job assignments, discouraged lawful union activity by employees including new hires, and improperly met with individual workers to discourage them from supporting the union in current contract talks.

Representatives of Savage Pacific could not be reached for comment Thursday. Gerald Swan, the export terminal’s chief executive, said the situation needs to be resolved as quickly as possible because ships are waiting to be loaded.

Swan said the export terminal is considering whether to file its own complaints against the longshore union with the National Labor Relations Board. He declined to state what the specific allegations might be.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union won the right to represent workers at the export terminal last January. Negotiations for the first labor contract began in April.