PMA ISSUES CONTRACT PROPOSAL, ILWU SAYS ‘NO’

PMA ISSUES CONTRACT PROPOSAL, ILWU SAYS ‘NO’    The Pacific Maritime Association said Monday it submitted “a comprehensive coastwise labor proposal” to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union as part of on-going collective bargaining negotiations.
   “Currently, full-time longshore workers earn an average of $106,883 a year. The PMA proposal will increase the overall compensation package of ILWU longshoremen by 17 percent over a five-year period. At the conclusion of this contract, the average full-time ILWU longshore worker will earn annually more than $114,500 in wages,” the PMA said in a statement.
   The employer-paid health package for ILWU members, currently “costing the industry an average of $42,000 per employee per year … will cost the PMA employers $57,204 per employee per year,” the PMA statement said.
   The PMA’s proposal also guarantees that all currently registered marine clerks will continue to “have the opportunity to work” as marine clerks. “When new technology is implemented, new work created from the technology within clerks’'jurisdiction will be ILWU marine clerks’ work,” the PMA said.
   “The implementation of new technology shall not be used as a subterfuge to transfer clerks’ work to others,” the statement said.
   The PMA anticipates that the ILWU will vote on its proposal during a union caucus later this week.
   In a statement released Monday afternoon, James Spinosa, the ILWU’s president, said “the union negotiating committee will present the PMA’s latest document to the Longshore Caucus … and has recommended a ‘no’ vote. Mostly likely, negotiations will continue.”
   Spinosa said that “the PMA has refused to stop the outsourcing of ILWU jobs and told the union’s negotiating committee that as terminals expand, ILWU members would not get the new work.”
   Also, “the PMA proposal also includes cutbacks in the health benefits … leading to the elimination of the medical indemnity plan in a matter of years,” Spinosa said.