WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- With a federal cooling-off period running out, West Coast union dockworkers and port operators tentatively settled on sweeping modernization, a pay hike and a pension benefits increase, promising no repeat of a crippling shipping shutdown after Christmas, the White House announced early Sunday.
"This agreement is good for workers, good for employers, and it's good for America's economy," President Bush said in a statement issued hours after his Saturday night return from a five-day swing through Europe. "I congratulate labor and management for working together to successfully resolve their disagreements."
Shippers are still dealing with the lingering aftereffects of the 10-day lockout that closed all West Coast ports, prompting President Bush to impose an early October Taft-Hartley back-to-work order set to expire near the end of the year. Labor-management talks had been underway for six weeks.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao early Sunday said she was "delighted the parties reached this historic agreement during the cooling off period established by President Bush."
The six-year contract, which clears the way for extensive computerization of the loading and unloading process, must now be approved in a vote by the 10,500 member International Longshore and Warehouse Union which wanted assurances the new efficiencies would not cost any jobs of current members.
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service mediator Peter Hurtgen said the agreement, signed shortly before midnight by the union and the Pacific Maritime Association of operators of 29 West Coast ports, was a product of labor and management professionals working to beat the approaching deadline.
Hurtgen praised the leadership of the PMA and ILWU, saying, "As the
deadline approached, both James Spinosa ILWU president and Joseph
Miniace, PMA president and CEO, demonstrated statesmanlike leadership which made this agreement possible." The PMA represents about 80 shipping terminal operators and shipping lines.
Hurtgen said the pact provides substantial improvement in wages and benefits for the union's members. It also provides necessary technology and dispute resolution improvements "needed to ensure that America's West Coast Ports continue to modernize and increase in both efficiency and productivity."
Had there been no agreement the employers would have been free to impose another lockout and the union would have been free to strike once the 80-day back-to-work order expired near the end of December.
Although the economic effects of the September-October lockout were mitigated somewhat by the advance warning that allowed shippers and their customers to speed up deliveries and to switch to air freight, the docks outage still was costly for the national economy and delayed the delivery of many Christmas items, especially from Asian manufacturers. Thousands of truck drivers, who transport the goods from the docks to warehouses and customers, also felt the pain.
Some analysts said a new outage could have quickly cost hundreds of millions of dollars a day in stalled shipments, escalating to perhaps a billion or more dollars a day in lost business.
While current union members may be allowed to hold on to their jobs despite the new efficiencies, they are still seen eliminating hundreds of clerical jobs made redundant by computerization.
Although no party has yet revealed the exact terms of the agreement or its percentage increase in wages and benefits, The Los Angeles Times said Sunday it allowed union members to hold to fully paid family health insurance with premium increases borne by employers, pension benefits up to $50,000 a year, large wage gains for some highly skilled equipment operators and overall wages that remain among the highest in the nation for blue-collar workers.
