At the urging of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the two bargaining organizations involved in the strikes throughout the L.A. port complex returned to negotiations Thursday night. The four-day strike—which began at the Port of Los Angeles Tuesday, spilled into the Port of Long Beach Wednesday, and continues today—has left one of the nation’s key cargo transportation points crippled.
“This dispute has impacted not only our port work force but all stakeholders who ship goods through our complex and potentially the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are directly and indirectly related to port operations,” said Port of Los Angeles Director Geraldine Knatz. “In today’s shipping environment, we can’t afford to lose cargo or our competitive advantage.”
For the first time since the strike began Tuesday, the two sides—the Office Clerical Unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 and the Harbor Employers Association, which represents 14 shipping companies—were scheduled to meet Thursday night to resume bargaining talks. The two sides discussed the process necessary to keep the talks going and the urgency to end the walkout.
Meetings this morning were expected to get to the substance of the stalemate—language in the contract that addresses whether or not the shipping companies can hire workers outside of the port to help direct cargo traffic
“We don’t have an issue with the [job] automation. We already agreed to that,” Fageaux told the Post just as employees began picketing at the Port of Long Beach on Wednesday. “What we won’t agree to is the outsourcing of jobs that are vital to community. Through the implementation of new technology, there have been portals created that allow people outside of the county to enter into the computer systems that bartering members usually work on. We feel it’s vital that we take a stand and make sure jobs stay here in our local community.”
Eight of nine terminals at the Port of Los Angeles remain shuttered today while three of six remain closed at the Port of Long Beach, which as of Thursday had caused a total of seven container ships to be redirected to other ports—an economic blow reminiscent of the 2002 10-day strike which cost the local economy some $1 billion a day. By Thursday morning, at least 18 ships were docked and inside the harbor and not being serviced, port spokesmen said.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa not only sent a letter but personally spoke to representatives from labor and negotiators for the shipping companies Wednesday from Brazil, urging both sides to go back to the table.
“The City of Los Angeles needs both of you to get back to the bargaining table this week, to work with a mediator, and to hammer out a settlement before further harm is done to our local economy,” wrote Villaraigosa in his letter. “There is no time to waste.”
Hinting at the 2002 strike, National Retail Federation President and CEO Matthew Shay wrote in a letter to President Obama, urging the President to use his power to urge the two sides back to the bargaining table. “An extended strike…this time could have a greater impact considering the fragile state of the U.S. economy,” he said.
The strike was prompted by the Office Clerical Unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63—the labor union that represents employees at both ports—of which some 800 members have been working without a contract for 30 months.
According to the ILWU website, clerical workers claim that employers are outsourcing jobs, that employers convert managers to become falsified union-represented clerks to mislead, and most importantly, that the dispute is not about money.
Employers however, feel most of these claims are highly questionable. They say that workers have rejected fair proposals in the last few years including the most recent one offered on Monday, the day before the walkout, which included: absolute guarantees that OCU workers will not be laid off; full-time pay for 52 weeks a year despite workload; permission to access computer database update histories and audit trails so as to allow clerical workers to research if anyone is using technology to divert their work; and most prominently, increase their compensation packages to over $190,000 in wages and benefits by 2016. Clerical workers currently make an average of $165,000 per year.
“The real purpose behind [the OCU claim that employers convert managers into union-represented clerks] is to promote ‘featherbedding,'” said Patrick Burnson, executive editor for Logistics Management and Supply Chain Management Review. “It requires employers to call in temporary employees and hire new permanent employees even when there is no work to perform. These unacceptable demands encourage and reward absenteeism, reduce efficiency and do not justify the current strike or the union’s decision to shut down the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.”
A strike by the clerical workers—who handle all of the paperwork for incoming and outgoing ships—might not have affected direct cargo operation. However, the strike gained ground when longshore workers joined the OCU picket line in a show of support, forcing the closure of the busiest terminals at both ports.