LOS ANGELES — Bargaining on a new contract for West Coast longshoremen has intensified after dockworkers who handle a majority of the nation’s cargo began selective slowdowns ahead of the holiday season.
Negotiators for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, representing terminal operators and shipping lines at 29 ports from San Diego to the Canadian border, met last weekend, on Veterans Day and into the night Nov. 12, union spokesman Craig Merrilees said, describing the schedule as rare.
With no contract governing their actions, crews have slowed container handling by half in Seattle and Tacoma, walked out mid-shift in Oakland and been unavailable to run cranes in Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to Wade Gates, a maritime association spokesman, reducing productivity.
“They’re actually bargaining and making progress,” said Jim Tessier, a former official of the maritime association who now works as a labor consultant. “They both lose in a strike or a lockout, and they know it.”