SAN FRANCISCO (REUTERS) — U.S. West Coast longshoremen and port employers outlined a six-year contract deal Sunday that brings a long-awaited modernization of the waterfront and ends a bitter labor dispute on the docks that handle $300 billion in cargo each year.
While employers and union officials have released few details about the agreement reached late Saturday night, the deal gives the International Longshore and Warehouse Union the significant wage and pension increases it was seeking.
The pact between the 10,500-member union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents port employers, will also lead to new labor-saving technology that shippers say is needed to make the ports more efficient.
The deal now goes before a union caucus Dec. 9, and ILWU president James Spinosa said longshoremen will probably vote on the agreement in early January. Until then, the longshoremen will work under the terms of the old contract.
“I’m looking forward to bringing this package to our members,” Spinosa said. “It is a great victory for the ILWU.”
President Bush welcomed the deal, which comes at a critical time for a slumping U.S. economy because the docks handle such a large amount of goods each year and any port disruptions would ripple through world financial markets.
The 10-day lockout by the employers in September and October, for example, paralyzed billions of dollars worth of U.S. trade and forced the Bush administration to invoke the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to get the ports back in business.
“I am very pleased that labor and management have reached an agreement concerning the West Coast ports,” Bush said in a statement released by the White House. “This agreement is good for workers, good for employers, and it’s good for America’s economy.”
Federal mediator Peter Hurtgen, who had been pressing to get a deal done by Thanksgiving, said the six-year contract was double the length of most collective bargaining agreements and would be good news for a slack U.S. economy.
“It provides stability for the industry and the economy,” Hurtgen said.
One of the key sticking points to reaching the agreement was a deal on new technology — such as computerized cargo-handling machinery — that employers say is needed to make West Coast ports stretching from San Diego to Seattle more efficient.
Federal mediator Hurtgen said the deal allows the shippers to go ahead with new technology, which will lead to an estimated 400-500 job losses, but gives the union control over remaining positions or any new ones created from technology.
The deal also brings to an end a bitter dispute that led to the 10-day shutdown and accusations that union members were using deliberate work slow-downs — a charge dockworkers denied — to gain leverage in the negotiations.
Joe Miniace, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, said the agreement was difficult to achieve, but the length of the contract would allow both sides to forge better working relationships after the acrimonious talks.
“This is going to be a new era for our waterfront,” Miniace said.
