On the NJ waterfront: ILA Union rallies for speedy hiring, warns of labor shortage

On the NJ waterfront: ILA Union rallies for speedy hiring, warns of labor shortage

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2014/03/on_the_waterfront_union_ral...

A longshoreman watches as a container is loaded onto a chassis after being removed from a ship at Maher Terminal in Elizabeth in this Star-Ledger file photo. The International Longshoremen's Association and other groups will hold a rally at Maher today calling for speedier hiring in order to avoid a port labor shortage. 08/29/97 NJNP Photo/ Longshore man John Wheeler watches as a container is loaded onto a chassis after being removed from the ship 'Adriatic' at Maher Terminal in Elizabeth. 08/29/97 NJNP Photo/Patti Sapone (Patti Sapone/Star-Ledger file photo)

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2014/03/on_the_waterfront_union_ral...

By Steve Strunsky/The Star-Ledger
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on March 24, 2014 at 6:15 PM, updated March 24, 2014 at 6:16 PM


A coalition of union dockworkers, their employers and other shipping interests will hold a dockside rally in Elizabeth Tuesday to force waterfront regulators to speed the approval of new hires.
The International Longshoremen’s Association, the New York Shipping Association, and other port interest groups warn of a growing labor shortage that could divert cargo ships to other ports, threatening to stall the region’s most powerful economic engine.
But the Waterfront Commission of New York Habor says the ILA union and employers failed to live up to non-descriminatory practices enshrined in their latest collective bargaining agreement, finalized last year.
Hiring dockworkers is a joint process in which NYSA members sponsor candidates who have been referred by the union. The Waterfront Commission then reviews the sponsored candidates and issues waterfront passes to those it approves.
“Our state’s largest economic engine is essentially being idled, and our port’s continued competitiveness put at a disadvantage."
Tuesday's 11 a.m. rally at Maher Terminal will bring together a coalition of union dockworkers and their employers, as well as truckers and retailers groups, lawmakers including state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), a commission critic who represents the port, the Seafarers International Union, and the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, the powerful labor umbrella group that includes the ILA.
“Our ports are the only ones in the nation where an outside bureaucracy — not business and labor — controls the creation of jobs,” Charles Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, said in a statement. “Our state’s largest economic engine is essentially being idled, and our port’s continued competitiveness put at a disadvantage, because of the Waterfront Commission’s stranglehold. It makes absolutely zero sense why nearly 700 badly needed jobs continue to sit vacant when both business and labor have identified a need for them and are ready to fill them.”
The current standoff began in September, when the union and employers moved to hire 682 new dockworkers, or about a fifth of the total longshoremen’s workforce at all Port of New York and New Jersey terminals in Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, Bayonne and New York City.
In November, the ILA and NYSA joined together in a federal lawsuit charging the commission with overstepping its authority by interfering with hiring decisions. The commission rejects the assertions in the suit. In January, the two sides announced an interim agreement to approve 225 of the 682 proposed hires, but the suit is still pending.
Before the lawsuit, the ILA, NYSA and other employers were charged in an August 2012 complaint by the New York State Divison of Human Rights with discriminatory hiring practices. The complaint charged that minorities and women were far underrepresented in three ILA locals — 824 in Manhattan, 1814 in Brooklyn, and 920 on Staten Island — compared to the racial and ethnic make up of those boroughs.
For example, while the 2010 Census said Brooklyn was 35.7 percent white, 34.3 percent black, and 18.8 percent Hispanic, Local 1814 was 73.3 percent white, 18.6 percent Hispanic, and just 7.2 percent black, with women making up 2.5 percent of the local.
“The ILA referral practices and the employer sponsorship system have caused a disproportionate number of minorities and women to be excluded from ILA membership and employment opportunities,” the complaint states.
The shipping association argues that the complaint’s analysis is flawed, and that it fails to take into account other locals in the port region, as well as new hiring practices that had been put in place. The complaint is pending.
Part of the current hiring dispute is the commission’s assertion that the union and shippers have reneged on a pledge to set aside 51 percent of the new slots for military veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The shippers have pledged to meet that target by the time referrals and sponsorship for all 682 positions have been committed, but the commission insists that was not the agreement, and a majority of veterans must be included in each round of hires.
Meanwhile, longshoremen have been working overtime, with some being pressured to postpone retirement plans. And, said NYSA President John Nardi, some rail cargo for export and import had already been diverted to Norfolk, Va., a competing port.
Joe Harris, a spokesman for the Virginia Port Authority, said Norfolk had received some cargo diverted there due to the severe weather that had shut down New York/New Jersey terminals for several days this winter.
“But as far cargo being diverted down here as a result of a labor shortage,” Harris said. “We haven’t seen that.”