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LA Mayor: "Deal Approved To End Costly Port Strike"

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Negotiators reached an agreement late Tuesday to end an eight-day strike that crippled the nation's largest port complex and prevented shippers from delivering billions of dollars in cargo to warehouses and distribution centers across the country, the mayor of Los Angeles said.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa emerged from the talks to make the announcement just a few hours after he had escorted in the federal mediators who had just arrived from Washington.

"The negotiating team has voted to approve a contract that they'll take to their members," Villaraigosa said, flanked by smiling negotiators, union members and the two mediators.

The deal came after days of negotiations that included all-night bargaining sessions suddenly went from a stalemate to big leaps of progress. Villaraigosa said the sides were already prepared to take a vote when the mediators arrived.

The strike began Nov. 27 when about 400 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's local clerical workers unit walked off their jobs. The clerks had been working without a contract for more than two years.

The walkout quickly closed 10 of the ports' 14 terminals when some 10,000 dockworkers, members of the clerks' sister union, refused to cross picket lines.

At issue during the lengthy negotiations was the union's contention that terminal operators wanted to outsource future clerical jobs out of state and overseas — an allegation the shippers denied.

Shippers said they wanted the flexibility not to fill jobs that were no longer needed as clerks quit or retired. They said they promised the current clerks lifetime employment.

During the strike, both sides said salaries, vacation, pensions and other benefits were not a major issue.

The clerks, who make an average base salary of $87,000 a year, have some of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the nation. When vacation, pension and other benefits are factored in, the employers said, their annual compensation package reached $165,000 a year.

"We know we're blessed," one of the strikers, Trinnie Thompson, said during the walkout. "We're very thankful for our jobs. We just want to keep them."

Union leaders said if future jobs were not kept at the ports, the result would be another section of the U.S. economy taking a serious economic hit so that huge corporations could increase their profit margins by exploiting people in other states and countries who would be forced to work for less.

After the tentative deal was announced, the workers' union released a statement thanking members for supporting the strike.

"This victory was accomplished because of support from the entire ILWU family of 10,000 members in the harbor community," said Robert McEllrath, the international president of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union.

Combined, the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports handle about 44 percent of all cargo that arrives in the U.S. by sea. About $1 billion a day in merchandise, including cars from Japan and computers from China, flow past its docks.

Shuttering 10 of the ports' 14 terminals kept about $760 million a day in cargo from being delivered, according to port officials. The cargo stacked up on the docks and in adjacent rail yards or, in many cases, remained on arriving ships. Some of those ships were diverted to other ports along the West Coast.

The clerks handle such tasks as filing invoices and billing notices, arranging dock visits by customs inspectors, and ensuring that cargo moves off the dock quickly and gets where it's supposed to go.

The $1 billion a day in cargo that moves through the busy port terminals is loaded on trucks and trains that take it to warehouses and distribution centers across the country.

Source; Associated Press – 12-04-2012 JR

Baja Mexico Port Picks up Slack from Strike at L.A. & Long Beach Shipping Complex

Dateline - ENSENADA, Mexico


The usually quiet port city of Ensenada is suddenly coming alive.

Standing atop a pier with a hulking cargo ship behind him, dock manager Rogelio Valenzuela Gonzalez motioned Monday toward four cranes as they plucked metal containers from the vessel.

Operators swiveled the cranes toward a line of flatbed trucks. Supervisors in reflective vests and hard hats watched from below, using two-way radios to dispatch trucks as they filled up.
Not even during the peak fall shipping season is this port so busy.

But a strike that has effectively shut down rival ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach has diverted ships south of the border. It has become a windfall for the port located about 50 miles from the border, its workers and the region's struggling economy.

"It's good for the workers' families," said Gonzalez, adding that the extra work will pay for additional Christmas presents. "We all know it's temporary, but it definitely helps out at the end of the year."
The Southern California strike ended its first week Monday, with negotiations continuing but no signs of an immediate resolution.

The strike by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 Office Clerical Unit, which handles paperwork for incoming and outgoing ships, has crippled the nation's two busiest cargo ports.

The dispute centers on the charge by the union that employers — large shipping lines and terminal operators — have steadily outsourced jobs through attrition. The union says the employers have transferred work from higher-paid union members to lower-paid employees in other states and countries.

The employers dispute that claim, saying they've offered the workers full job security and generous wage and pension increases. Though the union has only 800 members, the 10,000-member dockworkers union is honoring the picket lines.

Economists estimate the effect of the work stoppage at $1 billion a day in forfeited worker pay, missing revenue for truckers and other businesses and the value of the cargo that hasn't been able to reach its destination. The two ports are directly responsible for an estimated 595,000 jobs in Southern California.
But while thousands of Southern California workers sit idle in Los Angeles and Long Beach, the walkout is giving Ensenada a hoped-for chance to showcase itself.

Collectively, Los Angeles and Long Beach handle 100 times more cargo each year than Ensenada.
Long seen as a backup port, Ensenada is eager to win more business from shippers inconvenienced by the second major work dispute at the L.A. and Long Beach ports in a decade.

"It's a great opportunity to show that the Port of Ensenada presents an alternative method for bringing in products from Asia and the Pacific Rim," said Kenn Morris, president of Crossborder Group, a San Diego consulting firm. "The Ensenada port can really show itself off as being something a lot of people hadn't expected."

Uncertain how long the strike may last, retailers have scrambled to find alternate ways to get their products onto shelves. Given their typically thin profit margins, retailers are concerned about the added shipping costs.
"These blockages are dead-weight losses to the system," said Carl Voigt, an international business professor at USC. "They raise costs for everybody. Everybody's goods and services are more expensive."

Ensenada is used to seeing the occasional cruise ship and maybe half a dozen cargo ships a week. Two ships have made unplanned dockings and unloaded cargo here in the last week. Three others have docked in Manzanillo, a Mexican port city 1,200 miles to the south of Ensenada.

Altogether, 17 ships bound for the L.A. or Long Beach port have been diverted elsewhere, including nine to Oakland, one to Mazatlan, Mexico, and one to Panama.

In Ensenada, dockworkers made quick work unloading 100 cargo containers from the Maersk Merlion. The giant cargo vessel was diverted over the weekend and docked early Monday morning.

Since late last week, Ensenada has been preparing for a hoped-for influx of diverted ships. The port has 200 dockworkers when operating at capacity, and an additional hundred clerical and customs workers.

Equipment is on standby. Workers are at the ready. And trucking lines have been placed on alert that cargo may need to be hauled.

"It's hard to guess how many ships we'll receive, but we are preparing for more," said Juan Carlos Ochoa, the port's trade development manager.

Ensenada is still handicapped by longer-standing obstacles, primarily its lack of railway access to move goods.

And for now, the cargo unloaded from the Maersk Merlion will sit at the port as the shipping line weighs whether to move it by truck to its final destination or have another ship pick up the containers at a later date.
The strike "is an extraordinary situation," Gonzalez said. "But it'll show our clients that this port is a good option. It's efficient, reliable and secure."

Federal Mediation in Port Strike Agreed Upon by Both Sides

Both sides in the strike that has crippled the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have agreed to federal mediation, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villarigosa said Tuesday at a news conference.

Villaraigosa said the agreement was an encouraging sign and could help bring an end to the strike, now in its eighth day. He said the parties negotiated throughout the night and there had been some recent movement.

"I'm hopeful that the mediator will be here today," Villaraigosa told reporters. "We've got to get a deal and get a deal as soon as possible."

Workers belonging to the 800-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 Office Clerical Unit have been on strike since Nov. 27 against a 14-employer group of shipping lines and terminal owners. The picket lines are being honored by the 10,000 regional members of the ILWU. Add in local truckers, and some 20,000 workers are affected, Villaraigosa estimated.

The strike has shut down ten of the fourteen cargo container terminals at the nation's busiest seaport complex. The clerical workers had been without a contract since June 30, 2010.

The strike is considered potentially disastrous for the Southern California economy because the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the leading contributors to the region's goods-movement industry, which employs nearly 600,000 people.

The dispute centers on the charge by the union that employers — large shipping lines and terminal operators — have steadily outsourced jobs through attrition. The union says the employers have transferred work from higher-paid union members to lower-paid employees in other states and countries.

The employers dispute that claim, saying they've offered the workers full job security and generous wage and pension increases.

 

Source;LATnewswire

Los Angeles Port Strike Triggers Fears, Lobbying by Businesses

 

A national coalition of U.S. business groups is urging an end to a strike at the twin California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach amid fears that a prolonged stand-off will cost the American economy many billions of dollars, and could even spread to the east coast.

Trade groups led by the National Retail Federation have sent letters to U.S. President Barack Obama and leading members of Congress asking them to intervene and help end the strike at America's two busiest container harbor facilities. Those industry groups say the strike, which entered its sixth day on Sunday, is already costing $1 billion a day.

The labor dispute has been triggered by 500 clerical workers at the ports, members of the relatively small Office of Clerical Union Workers. Their industrial action and clout has been significantly strengthened because some 10,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have supported them, refusing to cross the clerical workers' picket lines.

Their action has effectively shut down 10 of the two ports' combined 14 container terminals. Four other container terminals have remained opened, along with facilities for handling break-bulk cargo such as raw steel and tanker traffic.

Industry groups say they have fresh memories of a 10-day lockout at West Coast ports in 2002. They estimate that dispute cost the U.S. economy $1 billion a day and that it took six months before the supply chains fully recovered.

Groups are also warily monitoring an ongoing labor dispute between the International Longshoremen's Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance which could affect ports from Maine to Texas.

The employment contract between the two groups expired at the end of September without a new agreement. The contract was temporarily extended for 90 days, until the end of this year. A federal mediator has stepped in to oversee negotiations to try an avert a strike that would hit at least 14 ports along the East and Gulf coasts.
"Our members are very nervous and very upset about the impact of the (Los Angeles) strike on their businesses," said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation.

"We have had a lot of feedback. They have very fresh memories of what happened in 2002 and what is happening on the east coast."

Gold said his organization has been working with groups including the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the Retail Industry Leaders Industry Association and the Harbor Truckers Association to pressure lawmakers in Washington to end the stand-off.

The NRF sent a letter to Obama last week asking him to intervene. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, California's two Democratic senators, have also urged both sides to resolve the dispute.

Negotiations ran late into Saturday and continued Sunday. The clerks had been without a contract for more than two years when labor talks with management broke off on Monday. The chief stumbling block has been the future of union representation for jobs that are lost through retirement.

ILWU leaders are demanding that jobs traditionally performed by their members remain classified as union work and subject to the union's contract terms, even after individuals holding those jobs retire. They accuse the management of seeking to outsource union clerical jobs to overseas workers paid far less in wages and benefits.

The Port of Los Angeles, the nation's busiest container harbor facility, and second-ranked Long Beach together handled more than $400 billion in goods arriving or leaving the West Coast by ship, L.A. port spokesman Philip Sanfield said