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West Coast port labor talks intensify

The Columbian
Published: November 15, 2014, 12:00am

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.”

Negotiators for the association and the union representing 20,000 dockworkers began meeting in May. After their six-year contract expired July 1, work continued without disruption. The public comity between the two sides ended Oct. 31 when the slowdowns began in Washington state.

The maritime association released a statement accusing workers of reneging on an agreement not to undermine productivity at the ports, while the union responded with a statement calling such an agreement a “bald-faced lie.”

In a letter to President Barack Obama, the National Retail Federation said the rhetoric suggested that a coast-wide port shutdown “may be imminent.” The lobbying group has estimated that a shutdown or a strike could cost the U.S. economy $2 billion a day.

The job actions and expressions of indignation may signal that the two sides are closing in on an agreement rather than a breakdown in talks, said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

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