ILWU Longshoremen Caucus vote to start labor-contract talks with West Coast ports

ILWU Longshoremen vote to start labor-contract talks with West Coast ports
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2016/08/12/west-coast-ports...

Aug 12, 2016, 7:33am PDT Updated Aug 12, 2016, 7:37am PDT

Riley McDermid
Digital Producer
San Francisco Business Times
Businesses press West Coast port unions to extend labor deal
West Coast ports, union reach contract agreement

More than 100 union dockworker delegates voted Thursday to discuss a contract extension with their West Coast port employer group, avoiding another crippling strike of the region's ports, including the Port of Oakland.

In a statement given to the Wall Street Journal, the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union said members were now interested in speaking to the Pacific Maritime Association about extending their contract.

Containers at the Port of Oakland were backlogged for months during labor talks in early… more

KEN JAMES / BLOOMBERG NEWS

“[There are] a wide range of concerns and opposing views on how to respond to PMA’s request,” President Robert McEllrath said in the statement. “[The vote is] a directive to go and have discussions with the PMA and report back to the membership."

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The current ILWU-PMA contract is valid only until July 1, 2019. It encompasses 29 ports, including Oakland, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Portland and Seattle, and includes 20,000 longshoremen on the West Coast.

"Businesses that rely on the West Coast ports, which include the nation’s two largest in Los Angeles and Long Beach, have been pushing for a contract extension after protracted negotiations spanning nine months from mid-2014 to early-2015 led to epic delays," the paper reports.

"Even once the deal was reached in February, it took the ports several weeks to work through a backlog of cargo, much of which was waiting on anchored ships in the San Pedro Bay outside Los Angeles and Long Beach — the first stop for much of the containership traffic coming to the U.S. from Asia."

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