Sources say a comprehensive proposal was sent by management to union last week.
Delegates from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union will
gather today in San Francisco for a caucus and may review a
comprehensive proposal from employers.
While not a “last and final” contract, sources say there was a
proposal given to the union by the Pacific Maritime Association so that
the 90 or so ILWU delegates attending the caucus would have something
to review and determine whether or not to accept.
While some shipper and industry executives have expressed concern
that if a proposal is not accepted by the ILWU caucus this week little
could be accomplished until after the holidays, other terminal
executives rejected that view.
They say enough progress has been made that even if the proposal was rejected, negotiations could resume later in the week.
Since May, the ILWU and PMA have been negotiating a new contract to
replace the one that expired on July 1. With a media blackout,
relatively little information about the contract talks and why it is
taking so long to reach an agreement has been available.
“This has been a strange negotiation process in that there really
were not a lot of heavy issues,” one executive said. He felt what
remains is hard, but relatively straight-forward, bargaining over wages,
pensions and perhaps the term of the contract.
The two prior ILWU-PMA contracts had six-year terms. While employers
prefer a longer-term agreement because negotiations are so time
consuming, one executive noted unions often prefer shorter deals. The
proposal being given union members gives them a choice of how long a
contract they prefer.
Another executive said there still may be further bargaining over jurisdictional issues.
In August, the PMA and ILWU said that they had reached a tentative agreement on health benefits.
ILWU caucus meets today
