ILA rejects early contract extension

ILA rejects early contract extension       International Longshoremen’s Association members and management are back to the negotiating table after ILA delegates meeting in Florida voted unanimously Wednesday night to reject a proposed early extension of their current contract.
      Disagreements about new technology were a major factor in why delegates turned down a proposal by USMX, the group that represents shipping lines and stevedores in negotiations with the dockworkers union. The proposal would have extended the expiration of the current six year contract from the end of September 2010 to September 2012.

Hughes

      ILA President Richard P. Hughes Jr. called this week’s meeting of the union's wage scale committee to consider USMX's proposal to extend the contract two years. Management had asked workers to defer a $1 to $1.50-per-hour wage increase due to go into effect Sept. 30 in exchange for a number of changes the ILA was seeking.
      Management had agreed to a plan to:
      ' Gradually eliminate over the course of about 11 years the two- tier wage system in place under which new ILA hires are paid a lower salary than older workers, even though they sometimes perform the same work.
      ' Eliminate a cap on container royalty payments that would have resulted in higher wages for workers in some ports and bolstered the treasury union’s benefit plans.
      ' Provide wage increases in the second and third years of the contract.
      “The biggest stumbling block is that they would not budge on our concerns about the introduction of new technology,' said Jim McNamara, a spokesman for the union. 'Their position was firm that they have the right to introduce new technology.”
      McNamara said union workers from all ILA crafts are concerned about the threat that new technology presents to their jobs. He pointed to APM Terminal’s facility in Portsmouth, Va., but also to new facilities built or planned in Jacksonville, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; and Montreal. These concerns include automated cranes, scanners and cameras used to input information now taken down by checkers and maintenance workers, and data stored at off-terminal computers.
      ILA members are also concerned that jobs formerly performed by them are going to management, McNamera said, recalling a visit by Hughes to the APM Terminal in Portsmouth one day where supervisors outnumbered ILA members.
      “There have been an erosion of jobs, and the jobs still exist. Who does them is a point of contention,” he said.
      “The good news is that everything was done early and we are still operating under a six-year contract. We have a year and hopefully we will jump right back into negotiations. The core thing is we have the time. This didn’t work, but that doesn’t mean there are not other solutions. Thank goodness that we have another 12 months and we hope cargo is not diverted and we get right back into negotiations,” he said. ' Chris Dupin