West Coast terminals continue to limit night operations

Longshoremen are planning rallies tomorrow in Los Angeles and Tacoma.    The Pacific Maritime Association said West Coast container terminals are continuing to limit night operations at West Coast ports.
   A spokesman for the organization said there was no night loading and unloading of ships in the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach and no night operations at ports in the Pacific Northwest and Oakland.
   Last week, the PMA eliminated night shifts for International Longshore and Warehouse Union gangs that load and unload containerships at marine terminals in the two Southern California ports. Earlier in the month it had reduced the number of gangs working ships from three to one.
   The PMA said last week it took that step to clear congestion at container terminals in order to “mitigate the impact of ILWU slowdowns that have now lasted for 10 weeks.”
   In Seattle, Terminal 18, operated by SSA Marine, was shut down Tuesday after a dispute between the company and members of the ILWU.
   Bob Watters, a spokesman for SSA said the union “told us we should hire more labor today, and we didn’t believe we needed to hire any additional labor and refused to do so.”
   Watters said the union believed that workers should be hired to work at Terminal 5 in the port, but he said SSA is not the operator at Terminal 5 and that the facility is not in operation. He said the terminal was formerly used by APL, but “there is no work going on there.”
   He said workers then walked off the day shift.
   A large rally is being planned in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles for Thursday afternoon.
   Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino said he is organizing the demonstration, which will include a march down Harbor Boulevard “As a show of unity with the ILWU” and that he expects as many as 5,000 persons to participate.
   A similar march and rally is planned for in Tacoma at Tollefson Plaza.
   Tacoma’s ILWU Local 23 said employers have laid off two shifts of workers at terminals, a total of 500 workers, since before Christmas, increasing congestion on the docks.