Obama directs Labor Secretary Perez to get involved in West Coast port contract talks

Move comes as ILWU, PMA talks enter 10th month.    President Obama is sending Labor Secretary Tom Perez to get involved in the contract negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and employers represented by the Pacific Maritime Association.
   Articles on the website of the Washington Post and The Hill newspapers carried identical statements from White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz as saying on Saturday, “The negotiations over the functioning of the West Coast ports have been taking place for months with the administration urging the parties to resolve their differences. Out of concern for the economic consequences of further delay, the president has directed his Secretary of Labor Tom Perez travel to California to meet with the parties to urge them to resolve their dispute quickly at the bargaining table. Secretary Perez is already in contact with the parties and will keep the president fully updated.”
   The involvement by Perez comes as congestion continues to build outside West Cost ports.
   On Monday morning there were 33 ships at anchor outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for congestion reasons, including 21 container vessels, nine bulk carriers, two general cargo carriers and one vehicle carrier, according to J. Kip Louttit executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California.
   Jonathan Gold, vice president for supply chain at the National Retail Federation, said, “We welcome the administration’s attention to this important national and international economic and supply chain issue and hope it recommits the two sides to reaching a deal. The slowdowns, congestion and suspensions at the West Coast ports need to end now.”
   The contract talks between the ILWU and PMA entered their tenth month last week. They have been trying since May to work out a contract to replace the six year agreement that expired on July 1.
   PMA has accused the ILWU of slowdowns since November, and in recent weeks has been reducing the number of workers it has been employing to load and unload ships.
   On Wednesday this week, PMA said it would not employ ILWU workers to operate cranes to load and unload ship on Thursday, Lincoln’s Birthday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday, Washington’s Birthday. It took similar action the prior weekend.
   PMA had said it had made the decision to “temporarily suspend premium-pay weekend and holiday vessel operations” because of “ongoing and costly ILWU slowdowns.” It said weekend and holiday pay rates command a premium of at least 50 percent of the basic longshore wage rate.
   PMA spokesman Wade Gates said earlier this week the slowdowns “will soon bring West Coast ports to gridlock. What they’re doing amounts to a strike with pay, and we will reduce the extent to which we pay premium rates for such a strike.” PMA said, however, that yard, gate and rail operations will continue at terminal operators’ discretion.
   Neither the PMA nor ILWU had an immediate comment.
   Rep. Janice Hahn, D-Calif., said she was “encouraged by this development” in a post on Twitter.
   Juanita D. Duggan, president and chief executive officer of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, said “By sending the secretary of labor to intervene, the administration is sending a strong signal that this is a serious issue with real economic consequences that needs to be resolved, and resolved quickly.
   “The unending port dispute has caused severe disruption across the 29 West Coast ports at a very steep cost to our industry and the U.S. economy as a whole. Through these ports, over half of all clothing and shoes sold in the United States are imported,” she said. “The situation at the West Coast ports has continued for far too long, forcing the companies we represent to endure nearly a year of uncertainty and delayed product deliveries – we cannot afford for this to continue.”
   Duggan said, “The inability for the parties to come to a labor agreement has created massive backlogs of containers at the West Coast ports. As a result, apparel and footwear companies have missed product delivery timelines, and have been forced to implement costly contingency plans to reroute the delivery of product through non-U.S. ports and by air.”
   The Agriculture Transportation Coalition said, “After nine months of little visible action from the White House, this comes just days after a large bipartisan group of congresspersons led by Reps. Reichert, R-Wash.; Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.; and Greg Walden, R-Ore., conducted a press conference, after AgTC delivered letters from 359 Oregon agriculture companies/associations and 222 Washington ag interests to the Oregon and Washington congressional delegations, and the entire Oregon congressional delegation sent strong letters to the president urging decisive action.”