Pacific Maritime Association says slowdown is crippling ports of Tacoma and Seattle.
The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents employers in their contract talks with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is accusing the union of initiating “orchestrated slowdowns at the Pacific Northwest ports of Seattle and Tacoma, severely impacting many of the largest terminals during the peak holiday shipping season.”
PMA said the two ports handle about 16 percent of containerized cargo on the West Coast.
The accusation of a slowdown come as the two sides are in the sixth month of negotiations for a new contract covering nearly 13,600 workers at 29 ports along the West Coast, from California to Washington.
Negotiations began May 12. When the most recent contract expired on July 1st, the parties issued a joint statement that read, “While there will be no contract extension, cargo will keep moving, and
normal operations will continue at the ports until an agreement can be
reached.
“Both sides
understand the strategic importance of the ports to the local, regional
and U.S. economies, and are mindful of the need to finalize a new
coast-wide contract as soon as possible to ensure continuing confidence
in the West Coast ports and avoid any disruption to the jobs and
commerce they support.”
Wade Gates, a spokesperson for the PMA, said, “Now, the ILWU has reneged on that agreement.”
The PMA said the ILWU initially targeted select terminals in Tacoma on Friday, Oct. 31, and expanded to more terminals in Tacoma and the Port of Seattle throughout the weekend. The slowdowns began within hours of the end of the latest negotiating session on a new coast wide contract.
The ILWU could not be reached for comment.
The PMA has found that the slowdowns at these Pacific Northwest ports have resulted in terminal productivity being reduced by an average of 40 to 60 percent. For example, terminals that typically move 25-35 containers per hour were moving only 10-18 containers, according to statistics compiled by the PMA, which tracks historical productivity based on the number of containers moved per hour for each vessel at the same terminal.
The organization said, “After several days of crippled productivity, employers demanded that union leaders return to normal workplace practices. When the ILWU refused by continuing its severe slowdowns, employers were forced to begin sending workers home, paid for time worked, mid-shift on Sunday.”
Gates said, “In Tacoma, the ILWU is not filling orders for skilled workers, including straddle carrier operators, who are critical to terminal operations. This is like sending out a football team without the receivers or running backs. You can’t run the plays without them.”
He added, “We have been told that ILWU business agents sent the slowdown orders out late last week.”
The PMA said that it has long been a union tactic to dispute “the existence of slowdowns.”
The employer group pointed to a 2002 article in the Los Angeles Times, “The Fine Art of the Slowdown,” about what it called a “long-refined practice, which the union has historically used to try to gain leverage in contract negotiations. Often, the ILWU will make false or exaggerated claims of safety issues in order to justify unilateral actions that have repeatedly been found to be in violation of the coast-wide contract.”
The PMA noted that during the negotiations, the ILWU “has refused to agree to a temporary contract extension — which it has agreed to during past negotiations — because such an extension would give both parties access to the well-established grievance procedure that has served the waterfront for decades. Jointly appointed arbitrators have continually found slowdowns on the waterfront to be impermissible, but with no contract extension in place, employers cannot access the arbitration process.”
Gates said the PMA is issuing a call to the union “to cease its slowdowns and agree to a temporary contract extension while we negotiate a new contract.” He continued, “the union’s agreement to a contract extension would give confidence to shippers and the general public, and would prove our willingness to solve our differences at the negotiating table, rather than by staging illegal actions at the docks.”
Gates said that while it is difficult to have “meaningful negotiations” currently because of the union’s tactics, the PMA “remains committed to good-faith bargaining until an agreement can be reached.”
He continued, “We urge the ILWU to rethink their slowdown strategy, which has the potential to cause great damage to the local, regional and national economies. It is essential that we resolve our differences at the negotiating table, rather than on the job site.”
The PMA made no mention of actions in other ports, but some shipping
executives have said chassis roadability inspections have been
intensified recently in the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach,
and that they believe this is part of a campaign to put pressure on the
terminals during contract negotiations.
Bobby Olvera, Jr.,
president of ILWU Local 13, defended the inspections last month in a
forum where terminal issues were discussed. He said the inspections were
started three
years ago, were created through an arbitration process, and have reduced
the amount of debris such as mudflaps and chassis legs littering
highways out of the port. He said recently the union has begun asking
truck drivers to get out of their trucks during the inspections because
“we had a truck driver’s clutch pop while a mechanic was
underneath his chassis inspecting the tires, and the chassis lurched
forward, and the man was almost crushed.”
The ILWU fired back at the PMA late Monday afternoon, saying it was conducting a “dishonest media offensive” that smears the union, jeopardizes contract negotiations, and deflects from a growing congestion problem at terminals.
It said, “PMA’s press statement dishonestly accuses the ILWU of breaking a supposed agreement ‘that normal operations at West Coast ports would continue until an agreement could be reached.’ This is a bold-faced lie. No such agreement was ever made, nor could it be made given the parties’ historic disagreement regarding the definition of ‘normal operations’ — a disagreement that has been the subject of arbitrations for decades.”
It also said the PMA’s statement that agreement to temporary contract extensions is standard practice was false.
The ILWU said it has “consistently come to the table in good faith despite PMA’s early pressure tactics, which include, among other things, secretly trying to shift away thousands of ocean container chassis traditionally handled and maintained by longshore workers, and refusing to bargain a training program that properly trains longshore workers and prevents non-qualified workers from operating dangerous equipment.”
The union said that the PMA’s “media blitz” will only ultimately delay negotiations. “Delays at the negotiating table are also reflected in the growing congestion problem at major West Coast ports.”
ILWU spokesperson Craig Merrilees said, “Congestion at key ports is the result of three factors — some of which is from employer mismanagement, according to industry experts.” It said the three factors are the change in the business model used to maintain and allocate truck chassis, a shortage of truck drivers to dray containers, and a shortage of rail car capacity to move intermodal containers from the docks to distant locations.
The ILWU called for talks to resume on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, terminal congestion in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach continues to result in large numbers of ships having to go to anchorage in order to wait for an open berth. Kip Louttit, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, said 14 ships were at anchorage as of 3 p.m. Monday. This included nine container vessels, four dry bulk ships and one tanker. All nine containerships were waiting for container berths in the Port of Los Angeles.
Employers accuse ILWU of slowdown at Pacific Northwest ports
