Dockworkers Rally at New Pier

About 1,500 dockworkers held a boisterous rally Thursday a few yards from the opening-day celebration at Maersk Sealand’s sprawling Pier 400 in the Port of Los Angeles.

The groups were separated by a long wall of 40-foot cargo containers apparently erected by Maersk so invited foreign dignitaries and local officials would not catch sight of the union activity.

Not to be ignored, the union members, locked in labor talks with the Pacific Maritime Assn., repeatedly shouted, “No contract, no peace!” The union also hired two airplanes to fly over the Maersk event with banners that said, “ILWU Wants a Contract Now!”

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents 79 shipping and stevedore firms, including Maersk, have been at the bargaining table since a contract covering 10,500 West Coast port workers expired July 1.

Now, facing federal intervention in the labor dispute, the union has been staging numerous rallies and demonstrations from Portland to San Diego.

On Monday, about 2,000 union members and supporters marched through downtown Long Beach to protest the Bush administration’s plans for bringing in federal troops to run the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex in the event the two sides fail to reach an agreement.

But Thursday’s rally was the first to target a specific employer, in this case, the world’s largest shipping firm during the grand opening of its new 484-acre terminal.

Union leader Dave Arian called Thursday’s demonstration “the start of Phase 2: making these companies accountable in the bargaining process.”

Standing on the back of a pickup truck and speaking through an amplifier, he said, “This is going to be a long fight. We’re shoring up and going into battle.”

Tom Boyd, spokesman for Maersk, whose world headquarters are in Denmark, said, “We respect the union’s right to communicate its message in any way it deems appropriate.”

The union rally, he added, “would not impact business” at the terminal, which he claimed will generate more than 58,000 jobs over the course of its 25-year lease with the city of Los Angeles.

Today, a joint hearing of California Senate and Assembly committees covering labor issues will convene at the Banning Landing Community Center in Wilmington.

The meeting will be chaired by Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) and Assembly member Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood).

A Pacific Maritime spokesman said Thursday that “what’s important is to get back to the table as soon as circumstances allow, so we can have tough negotiations that will result in a successful contract.”

The main contract negotiations in San Francisco have been temporarily recessed since Tuesday, when ILWU President James Spinosa’s father died in Los Angeles.