Owners of all 29 West Coast ports threatened to shut down cargo loading and unloading over the weekend in the latest salvo in ongoing contract battle between dock workers and port owners.
This time, it was the owners who called for operations to be halted. The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents port management in labor talks with the International Longshoremen and Dock Workers’ Union, said it would shut down the ports out of frustration by chronic slowdowns by union members that were crippling the facilities.
No Work, No Pay
“In light of ongoing union slowdowns up and down the coast which have brought the ports almost to a standstill, PMA member companies finally have concluded that they will no longer continue to pay workers premium pay for diminished productivity,” the association said in a brief statement.
Vessel loading and unloading operations were to be suspended Saturday and Sunday, but would resume Monday. Yard operations, which includ moving unloaded cargo containers for truck and rail delivery to customers, was expected to continue undisturbed over the weekend, subject to the discretion of terminal operators.
Management’s “All-In” Contract Offer
The owners’ decision to stop operations at the docks came just one day after it issued what it termed as its final “all-in” offer to the union, which would significantly increase pay and health care benefits for workers.
“Full-time ILWU workers already earn an average of $147,000 per year, and would see their wages rise roughly 3 percent per year, along with fully paid health care that costs employers $35,000 per worker per year,” the PMA said in a news release. “The maximum ILWU pension would rise to $88,800 per year as part of the proposed five-year contract.”
Union Calls Move “Reckless and Irresponsible”
But union officials criticized the PMA, calling the lockout at the ports punitive and reckless.
“Closing the ports at this point would be reckless and irresponsible,” said ILWU president Robert McEllrath in a news release. He urged the federal mediator to keep both sides at the table until a contract agreement can be reached.
If the ports are closed, “the public will suffer and corporate greed will prevail,” McEllrath said. He added that the cargo ports are owned by foreign-owned multinational corporations.
“These foreign-owned companies make billions of dollars and pay their executives millions to do their bidding,” he said.
Nine Months of Talks
The contract between workers and management expired July 1. Talks between the two sides have been ongoing since May 12 and last month the US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service stepped in with the hopes of finding a way to untangle the stalled contract negotiations.
Either a long-term lockout or a labor strike could cripple the US supply chain. West Coast ports handle more than two-thirds of all US retail container cargo and most of the cargo arriving from Asia.
While this year’s expansion of the Panama Canal is expected to open up East Coast ports to the Panamax super-freighter cargo ships that commonly are used for Asian imports, the deepening and widening of the canal won’t be finished until later this year at the earliest.
Shut Down Could Be Costly to US Economy
The last time the ports went dark was in 2002, when strike shut down West Coast ports for 10 days. That created a backlog that took several months to be cleared. That disruption cost the US economy an estimated $15 billion in reported losses.
The ILWU represents 14,000 port workers at 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle.