ILWU: PMA, UNION REACH TENTATIVE AGREEMENT ON TECHNOLOGY ISSUE

ILWU: PMA, UNION REACH TENTATIVE AGREEMENT ON TECHNOLOGY ISSUE    The International Longshore & Warehouse Union told Shippers News Wire on Friday afternoon that that a “tentative” agreement had been reached with the Pacific Maritime Association in regard to technology issues.
   The PMA said only that “progress has been made,” and promised to issue a statement.
   Sources cited by the National Industrial Transportation League said the agreement was reached following an all-night mediated session with the PMA and ILWU, and that the agreement included an approach as to how technology will be introduced.
   An agreement on technology would be a major breakthrough for increasingly bitter negotiations between the ILWU and the PMA after an injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act ended a 12-day shutdown of West Coast ports on Oct. 9.
   “Yes, we have reached a tentative agreement on the technology proposal,” Steve Stallone, an ILWU spokesman, said Friday. “The next subject to be taken up will be pensions,” he said, indicating that meetings will continue.
   “We are under constraints from the federal mediator not to comment specifically,” Stallone said, “so we can’t give out any'details until the whole package has been negotiated and finalized.”
   Steve Sugerman, a PMA spokesman said Friday: “All I can say in mid-afternoon, Eastern Standard Time, is that progress has been made. We may have more to say later.”
   The ILWU also said it has sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft asking for a “full investigation into the apparent collusion between the Bush administration and shipping companies and associations during the West Coast ports contract dispute.”
   James Spinosa, president of the ILWU, wrote Ashcroft that “there is a considerable amount of evidence currently in the public record that indicates that government officials collaborated with certain business officials … to weaken the bargaining power of the ILWU.”
The PMA had no comment on Spinosa’s letter.