Deal Would Allow Hiring of Nonunion Port Workers

Major shipping lines said Friday that they had reached a deal with the dockworkers union that would allow the hiring of up to 2,000 nonunion workers to ease congestion at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The pact between the Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents the lines, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Locals 13 and 63, stills needs to be ratified by the roughly 11,000 union members at West Coast ports, the PMA said. The ILWU could not be reached Friday for comment.

In the meantime, the PMA said it would temporarily hire an undisclosed number of workers with previous waterfront experience as early as today.

On Friday evening, 58 cargo ships were at the twin ports, with 17 at anchor waiting for dock space to open up and nine more expected before midnight. An additional 37 ships were due to arrive over the weekend. The logjam resulted in one ship being diverted to Oakland this week.

The surge in cargo forced railroad company Union Pacific Corp. to turn down new orders. The railroad is operating at capacity on its eastbound lines out of the Los Angeles area, said company spokesman John Bromley.

Union Pacific already is struggling to handle “volumes equivalent to last year’s peak season,” he said, well before the usual midsummer rush begins to deliver back-to-school and holiday goods.

During the week, the PMA dropped its 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. shift to throw those crews onto the prime morning and evening shifts, said Michael DiBernardo, marketing manager for the Port of Los Angeles. Despite that, the Marine Exchange of Southern California said the ports were 67 crews short of what was needed to load and unload the ships.

“Over the next three months, these ports are going to be overwhelmed” without additional help, said Dave Arian, president of the ILWU’s Local 13.

Separately, contract talks continued Friday between a small clerical workers union and shipping lines.

Bargaining sessions between the 750-member clerical unit of Local 63 of the ILWU and 16 shipping companies entered its third day. No representatives from either side could be reached Friday for comment.

The clerks, who handle the paperwork for most of the shipping lines using the ports, have been working without a contract since June 30. If they decide to strike, the Los Angeles and Long Beach ILWU locals have said they will honor the picket lines, which would shut down the port complex and create an even larger backlog of ships.

Fueling the surge in traffic is “a tidal wave of merchandise” from China, which has become the Los Angeles Customs District’s biggest source of trade, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

In May, the Port of Long Beach recorded a record amount of cargo for a single month as the equivalent of more than 468,000 20-foot containers passed through it, up 21% from a year earlier.

“The volume is extremely high,” said John Fageaux Jr., president of the ILWU’s Local 63, Office Clerical Unit.

“We don’t normally run 12 crews,” said Phil Lucier, director of terminal services for Eagle Marine Ltd., which provides stevedores for the two ports. “To have all 12 cranes working at once, that’s pretty big.”