Baltimore ILA local approves contract

Election proceeded despite the request for a restraining order.    Members of Local 333 of the International Longshoremen’s Association, which represents dockworkers in Baltimore, have approved a local contract.
   Wilbert Rowell, the trustee for the local said a majority of its members voted yes to a memorandum of settlement, adding, “As a result of the vote, the MOS is now in effect; in other words, we have a contract.”
   “Amongst the gains secured in the MOS, you now have guaranteed wage increases on local cargo through Sept. 30, 2018, have protected your fringe benefit contributions, and secured that 100 percent of referrals will be from Local 333,” Rowell told members in a letter posted on the local’s website. “You have also provided a message to customers sending or receiving cargo through the Port of Baltimore.”
   The election was held despite an attempt by the former president of Local 333, Riker J. McKenzie, and other members to obtain a temporary restraining order to block the election.
   Local 333 was put into trusteeship last November by the ILA International after a hearing committee found that the local’s executive board had wrongfully attempted to induct 500 new members. ILA International deemed that effort anti-democratic insofar as it came on the eve of an anticipated ratification vote for a new collective bargaining agreement.
   The federal judge who denied the motion for temporary restraining order to stop the election said Riker and the other plaintiffs “may ultimately prove that the trusteeship was imposed in bad faith, but the minimal and one-sided evidentiary showing advanced to date does not allow the court to conclude they are likely to do so.”