West Coast ports to remain shut

Justin Pritchard

Monday, Sept. 30, 2002 | 9:45 a.m.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hundreds of millions of dollars of cargo sat idle off the West Coast today as port workers were ordered off their jobs for a second time in a labor dispute that could cost the nation an estimated $1 billion a day.

A frail labor peace between shipping lines and West Coast longshoremen collapsed Sunday when workers were barred indefinitely from the docks at the 29 major Pacific ports.

The Pacific Maritime Association, representing shipping lines and sea terminal operators, ordered the lockout until the longshoremen's union agrees to extend a contract that expired July 1.

Both sides have agreed to meet today in San Francisco. They are at odds over benefits and pension packages and cargo-handling technology that the union fears would wipe out jobs.

Economists have warned a protracted disruption will have ripple-effects throughout the U.S. economy. Hawaii relies on shipping for about 90 percent of its goods. Assembly lines across the country may stop production as ordered parts fail to arrive.

West Coast ports handled more than $300 billion in cargo during the past year. Over the weekend, about 30 ships had to moor outside berths at ports in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., the association said. Another 70 vessels did not get serviced.

"If you went this weekend to a shopping mall, you're going to be affected by this lockout," said Miguel Contreras, a local spokesman for the National Labor Movement. "The American public is going to pay for it this Christmas."

Negotiators with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, representing 10,500 dock workers, blamed shipping lines for the meltdown.

"This union is ready to go to work," Jim Spinoza, union president and chief negotiator, said Sunday in Los Angeles.

Pacific Maritime Association president Joseph Miniace called the decision a "defensive shutdown."

"I will not pay workers to strike," he said.

Sunday's shutdown came less than 12 hours after longshoremen returned to the docks as shipping lines lifted a lockout imposed Friday soon after contract negotiations fell apart.

Peter Hurtgen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, asked both sides to come to Washington, D.C., for talks on Thursday, said the service's chief of staff, John Toner.

Association officials accepted the meeting date, but union officials did not immediately respond.

A message left Sunday evening with the U.S. Labor Department was not immediately returned. The union has accused the Bush administration of meddling in talks, which began in May.

More than 10,000 union members, including 6,000 in Long Beach and Los Angeles, have been without a contract since July 1. The bulk of the nation's imports from China and Japan come through the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the nation's busiest ports.

Earlier in the bargaining process, there were signs of progress over benefits and pensions packages. But the talks began deteriorating during the summer, and they crumbled this week over the question of how to implement new technology on the waterfront.

Longshoremen said they can accept short-term job losses from increased efficiency, but the union wanted guarantees that positions created by computer tracking systems would be union-covered.

Shipping line officials countered that trade increases will more than offset job losses, but the union shouldn't have jurisdiction over every new job that new technology produces.

On Sunday at the union's San Francisco chapter, historically one of the most militant on the coast, labor leaders told workers to report to a dispatch hall for random assignment. That meant, for example, that experienced crane operators chose other jobs, and left their less experienced co-workers to operate the cranes -- a move that slowed down loading and unloading.

"They wanted us to come back like we were going to be good little puppy dogs," said Richard Mead, president of the San Francisco chapter. "It doesn't work like that on the waterfront."

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