West Coast longshoremen, employers discuss contract extension

Representatives from the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union met Tuesday and discussed a possible extension of their current contract, which runs through June 30, 2019.    Representatives from the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), met Tuesday in San Francisco and discussed a possible extension of their current contract, which covers 20,000 members of the ILWU Longshore Division who work at 29 West Coast ports.
   The current contract runs through June 30, 2019.
   “No additional comments from either party will be made prior to the next meeting date,” the ILWU and the PMA said in a joint statement.
   In August, a group of 128 trade organizations representing shippers and transportation organizations joined together to urge the ILWU and the PMA to begin early contract talks. “We applaud your organizations for considering an extension of the current contract. However, we now call upon you to agree to the requests and begin the negotiations,” they said in a letter sent Aug. 8 to ILWU President Robert McEllrath and PMA Chairman and CEO James McKenna.
   The letter was signed by manufacturers, farmers and agribusinesses, wholesalers, retailers, importers, exporters, distributors, transportation and logistics providers, and other supply chain stakeholders. Shipper groups that signed the letter included the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, the National Retail Federation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while transportation groups that signed it included the American Trucking Associations, and the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America.
   Negotiations for the current contract began March 12, 2014 and continued for nearly a year until February 20, 2015 when a deal was finally reached. During those fractious negotiations, employers accused the union of slowdowns and the union accused employers of withholding labor and shortening hours. Cargo at the docks and dozens of ships were moored off the West Coast, waiting to come to berth so they could discharge and load cargo. It was not until May 22, 2015 that the contract was finally ratified by ILWU members, nearly a year after the prior contract had expired.