ILA will vote on contract Thursday

Union president calls for ratification of the six-year agreement, lauded as its best ever.    Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association will vote Thursday on whether to approve a proposed six-year master contract.
   On June 7, the ILA’s Wage Scale Committee approved a six-year extension to the union’s master contract that was negotiated with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). The contract would run from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2024.
   “The International now seeks your ratification of this agreement,” said ILA President Harold Daggett.
   Daggett said the proposed contract “not only protects the benefits you already have, but also enhances these benefits to ensure that you are compensated appropriately for all your hard work.” Employees will receive a $1 per hour increase in salary in years two, four, five and six and a $1 increase in the ILA’s national “money purchase plan” — a type of defined benefit pension — in years one and three of the agreement.
   “I am particularly pleased with the jurisdictional protections that the ILA has negotiated that will ensure that your jobs will be preserved in the years ahead. I believe that this proposed extension represents a giant step forward in the collective bargaining history of the ILA,” he added.
   The union calls the proposed deal its best-ever contract. The ILA said the agreement bans fully automated equipment for the duration of the contract and that semiautomated equipment and technology automation will not be implemented until both management and the union agree to workforce protection and staffing levels.
   Carriers will benefit from a “setback” provision in the contract that allows carriers to change start times for longshore work so that shipping companies are not paying the salaries of longshoremen who are waiting for ships that have been delayed in getting to a berth because of weather or issues such as channels being blocked because of dredging.
   The contract also includes what the ILA and USMX call their “Caribbean Basin initiative.” This reduces royalties in U.S. ports where ILA master contract employers such as Sealand, MSC, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd compete on services to the Caribbean, Central America and South America with carriers such as Seaboard Marine and Tropical Shipping that are non-ILA master contract carriers.