ILA, employers appealing decision in favor of NY Waterfront Commission

Diversity of recent hires belies charges of discrimination, says ILA union and its employers.    The International Longshoremen’s Association and two groups representing their employers — the New York Shipping Association and Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors’ Association — are appealing a decision last month by a U.S. District Court judge that dismissed their complaint against the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor.
   Announcing their appeal, the three organizations repeated their claim in the original complaint that that the commission was overstepping its statutory authority in imposing requirements it believes are needed to ensure hiring is fair and non-discriminatory. John Nardi, the president and chief executive officer of NYSA, said the appeal has not yet been filed, but expects it will be by the end of September. He said the appeal could be could be filed up to 60 days from Aug. 27.
   “The ILA asserts that the Waterfront Commission has no business interfering in collective bargaining agreements the ILA has with its employer groups. The ILA will use all available resources and legal means to deny the Waterfront Commission from overreaching its statutory authority,” said Harold J. Daggett, president of the ILA.
   Nardi said a recruitment-and-hiring plan announced last year as part of their contract agreement calls for employment of hundreds of military veterans and “further enhances the diversity of the longshore industry’s workforce.”
   Nardi explained, “The current demographics of the new hires under that plan reflect a real cross-section of our community. More than 60 percent of the 423 newly hired individuals are minorities; and 51 percent of the individuals employed by the industry will be military veterans, with the balance consisting of referrals from NYSA, its employer members, and the ILA.”
   He continued, “As can be seen from the diversity achieved by the industry’s recruitment-and-hiring plan, that action is not about the industry’s purported ‘attempts to institutionalize discrimination through collective bargaining’ as the Waterfront Commission has asserted. Instead, the action is about curtailing the Waterfront Commission’s misuse of its limited statutory authority. The appeal will seek to resolve the overarching legal issues relating to the extent of the Waterfront Commission’s statutory authority and whether it is permitted to run roughshod over the industry’s collective-bargaining rights, even though those rights are expressly protected by the very compact that created the Waterfront Commission.”
   James R. Mara, president of MMMCA, whose group bargains with ILA mechanics and maintenance workers, said, “We are troubled by the Waterfront Commission’s continued interference into our federally protected collective bargaining rights and their misuse of the authority given to them under the Waterfront Commission Compact which has had a negative impact on port commerce. We firmly believe that an appellate court will share our concerns and we trust that it will be for the betterment of the economies of New York and New Jersey. “