ILWU caucus meets today

Sources say a comprehensive proposal was sent by management to union last week.    Delegates from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union will gather today in San Francisco for a caucus and may review a comprehensive proposal from employers.
   While not a “last and final” contract, sources say there was a proposal  given to the union by the Pacific Maritime Association so that the 90 or so ILWU delegates attending the caucus would have something to review and determine whether or not to accept.
   While some shipper and industry executives have expressed concern that if a proposal is not accepted by the ILWU caucus this week little could be accomplished until after the holidays, other terminal executives rejected that view.
   They say enough progress has been made that even if the proposal was rejected, negotiations could resume later in the week.
   Since May, the ILWU and PMA have been negotiating a new contract to replace the one that expired on July 1. With a media blackout, relatively little information about the contract talks and why it is taking so long to reach an agreement has been available.
   “This has been a strange negotiation process in that there really were not a lot of heavy issues,” one executive said. He felt what remains is hard, but relatively straight-forward, bargaining over wages, pensions and perhaps the term of the contract.
   The two prior ILWU-PMA contracts had six-year terms. While employers prefer a longer-term agreement because negotiations are so time consuming, one executive noted unions often prefer shorter deals. The proposal being given union members gives them a choice of how long a contract they prefer.
   Another executive said there still may be further bargaining over jurisdictional issues.
   In August, the PMA and ILWU said that they had reached a tentative agreement on health benefits.