USMX responds to ILA’s planned work stoppage

The United States Maritime Alliance, the employer group that negotiates the master contract with the International Longshoremen’s Association, called the ILA’s planned work stoppage threat “disturbing.”    The United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), the employer group that negotiates the master contract with the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), said Wednesday that a press release issued by the ILA on Tuesday, which threatened a coastwise work stoppage, was “disturbing.”
   The ILA said Tuesday, “Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) from Maine to Texas are calling for a shut down of ports along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and a march on Washington to protest job loss and the resulting negative impacts on America’s economy.”
   In response, the USMX said Wednesday, “The master contract between the ILA and the USMX forbids any unilateral work stoppage by the ILA for any reason. If the ILA engages in any unilateral walkout, USMX will enforce the contractual rights of its members to the fullest. USMX urges the ILA to remain in compliance with the master contract and thus continue to provide the stable labor environment that has existed on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts for decades.”
   The ILA said that a date for the protest would be announced next week.
   Kenneth Riley, ILA vice president and president of ILA Local 1422, in Charleston, S.C., who is quoted in Tuesday’s press release, said the event might be held in the next 30 days.
   The release was issued not by the union itself, but an external public relations firm. The fact that Riley was the only person quoted in the press release made one government official skeptical as to whether the protest was “ILA-wide sanctioned.”
   But Riley said the plan for the protest has the support of the ILA Executive Council, and when a query was made to the union’s headquarters about the press release, union spokesman James McNamara directed American Shipper to Sheinkopf Communications, the New York-based public relations firm that issued the press release.
   The call for the protest came after contract extension talks were held last week in Delray Beach, Fla.
   The ILA and the USMX issued a joint statement after that meeting, noting how it was was “productive and fruitful.”
   However, a statement from Hank Sheinkopf of Sheinkopf Communications said in an email that at the same meeting, 200 rank and file members “expressed outrage at the way their fellow dockworkers were treated in Charleston, S.C. and NY/NJ. The result was a call for a massive protest in Washington D.C., in which more than 15,000 members are expected to protest. ILA National leadership is not involved with the protest. The location and time of the protest are being discussed now, we are told. But the waterfront is a place where things just happen.”