SoCal ILWU office workers present last offer, back to table today
The union representing maritime office workers in Southern California Friday presented employers with what union officials characterize as a final offer. The offer comes following Friday's daylong negotiating session in the more than month-long contract talks between the union and 14 shipping carriers and terminal operators at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
“We’ve done all we can,” John Fageaux Jr., president of the Office Clerical Unit, Local 63, of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union told the Associated Press on Saturday.
The employers will have until this afternoon, when the next scheduled round of talks are set, to review the union offer. The current talks began in May after expiration of the current contract on June 30.
Both sides remain optimistic for a settlement. Insiders at the bargaining table said that terms had essentially been reached by both sides, but how the terms were spelled out in the contract were still being debated.
The office workers have made it clear that if talks stall or collapse, they would head for the picket lines. The 15,000-strong dockworkers from locals of the Southern California ILWU have said they would honor the office worker picket lines if any are drawn.
A possible strike by even a portion of the union could threaten to shut down the two neighboring ports and turn off a tap from where 40 percent of the nation's goods flow.
The OCU union local, an entity unique to Southern California, is part of the ILWU dockworker union. However, the union negotiates their contract with 14 Los Angeles and Long Beach-area maritime firms directly and not with the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the interest of West Coast maritime firms in negotiations with the parent ILWU union. The OCU represents mainly white-collar office and clerical workers in off-port offices of maritime firms. Local 63 represents more than 900 workers for 17 shipping companies and terminal operators at the ports. The current contract talks, however, only covers members at 14 of the area firms.