ILWU clerks sign contracts with 17 of 20 employers

Local 63-Office Clerical Unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union reached seven-year labor deals with employers months ahead of the current contract expiration date this June.    Just one year after a contract agreement between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and employers finally ended months of contentious negotiations that snarled operations at West Coast ports, there was some good news for shippers attending the TPM 2016 conference in Long Beach this week.
   Local 63-Office Clerical Unit (OCU) of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has signed contracts with most of the employers that employ its members, well ahead of the current contract expiration date of June 30, 2016.
   This is in sharp contrast with the protracted negotiations that produced the current Local 63 OCU contracts. Those talks went on from 2010 until February 2013, and were only resolved after an eight-day strike in late November and early December of 2012.
   The 900 Local 63 OCU members do not drive container cranes or yard hostlers at terminals, but perform clerical work such as processing bills of lading, bookings, equipment controls at the offices of steamship lines and terminal operators.
   John J. Fageaux Jr., president of Local 63 OCU, said his organization has signed contracts with 17 of the 20 companies it negotiates with, concluding one this Tuesday.
   He believes an agreement on the remaining contracts can be reached in several weeks, while Stephen Berry, an attorney who represents employers, thought even if the remaining three contracts take longer to resolve, they could be completed by June 30. Berry noted the contracts have a seven-year term, meaning “there will be stability with clerical workers for a long time to come.”
   In the 2010-2013 contract talks, Fageaux said the union had negotiated with all the employers simultaneously, but this time it negotiated which each company individually. He said those companies all had some shared interests, but different interests as well, making the negotiations difficult because small issues with individual companies would “take on a life of their own.”
   Berry estimated that 95 percent of the main contracts that Local 63 OCU negotiates with each of the 20 companies are identical.
   “I think it is a model that certainly works and I would like to see this continue in the future,” said Fageaux.
   Meanwhile, at another session of the TPM 2016 conference, ILWU president Robert McEllrath said he would be willing to ask union members if they would consider a contract extension for the main contract for all longshoremen up and down the West Coast.
   That contract, which was signed last year, is with the Pacific Maritime Association, the group that represents terminal operators and steamship lines in labor negotiations.
   McEllrath said he would ask his members to consider an extension if the PMA  made such a request. Speaking on the same stage, Jim McKenna, the chief executive officer of the PMA said it would send a letter with such a request. The current ILWU-PMA contract expires on July 1, 2019.