West Coast dockworkers to vote on 6-year contract

SAN FRANCISCO - Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) will vote later this month on a new six-year contract with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), the managers of the nation's West Coast ports.

The vote among the 10,500 workers in the ports of Seattle, Portland, Long Beach-Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland and elsewhere, will come after 100 ILWU delegates meet in San Francisco Dec. 9-13 to discuss the pact, ILWU said.

The proposal, which the union's bargaining committee recommended, solves the key issue that had the two sides at loggerheads since the old contract expired July 1: Computerization and union jobs.

In return for allowing increased computerization at the ports - use of optical scanners, remote cameras and other equipment to track freight - the PMA agreed that any jobs at the ports, existing or new, would be union-covered.

But computerization is expected to initially eliminate about 400 clerks' jobs, though PMA also agreed not to lay off the clerks, but find other jobs for them, the New York Times reported.

And savings the managers gain from computerization will go to better pensions for ILWU members, ILWU President Jim Spinosa said.

"The ILWU has historically fought for pension security and this issue was a top priority," Spinosa said. It also was the last issue solved in the talks, which ended with the signing after 10 p.m. on Nov. 23.

"The bottom line is that the increased efficiency and cost savings resulting from the technology improvements ... now rightfully result in pension protection for ILWU members and their families," he added. He called the pact "a victory for workers and their families and a win-win" for ILWU and the United States.

National AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, who assisted the ILWU in the negotiations, said "by meeting the needs of the dockworkers for health care, job security, economic security, safety and good pensions, while also addressing important technology issues, the ILWU has negotiated a truly historic contract for its members."

The new contract also includes improved health and safety provisions, Spinosa said, though he did not detail them.

Safety became an issue during bargaining, as five union members and two other dockworkers died in accidents, compared to a normal rate of one death per year. The union said the deaths occurred because PMA pressured workers to speed up cargo handling and permitted unsafe traffic conditions.

Spinosa also said the new contract includes a wage hike, but did not say how much it was. The Times said base wages would rise by 11 percent, or $3 an hour, over the six years.

The dockworkers, who had been in negotiations since late June and were locked out by the PMA for 12 days in early October, returned to their jobs after President George W. Bush, in an unprecedented move, invoked the federal Taft-Hartley Act. Bush also secured a court order forcing the PMA to temporarily end its lockout of dockworkers and ordered work to resume without a contract during federally-mediated negotiations. A federal judge later extended the court order into an 80-day cooling-off period.

On Nov. 1, with hard bargaining continuing on major issues, including pensions, an arbitration system, wages and the duration of a new contract, both sides agreed that new port jobs created by technological advances will be represented by the ILWU.

"We had bottom-line concerns about jurisdiction and the employers met those concerns," union spokes-man Steve Stallone said. "This is a major victory for the union and the first real progress we have made in these negotiations."

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