Six-year deal closes chapter on bitter dockworker dispute

By J. Martin McOmber
Seattle Times business reporter

West Coast dockworkers and shipping companies approved a new contract yesterday, bringing an end to the rancorous dispute over jobs and technology that closed major ports from San Diego to Seattle last year and threatened to wound the nation's fragile economy.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which came out ahead on nearly every major point of contention in negotiations, voted 89 percent in favor of the six-year deal. It was the largest margin in the union's often stormy history of labor agreements.

"Personally, I didn't dream we would get a contract this good offered to us," said Rudy Finne, local spokesman for the ILWU. "We were really surprised."

The contract provides no-cost health insurance and a pay raise that would allow the highest-skilled workers to earn up to $138,000 a year. Members also won a nearly 60 percent increase in pension benefits, which officials called the biggest retirement gain in the history of the American labor movement.

More importantly, the ILWU prevailed in its key demands regarding the introduction of new cargo-tracking technology on the docks: No current members will lose jobs, and any new positions created by technology will fall under union jurisdiction.

The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the shipping and cargo companies, didn't walk away empty-handed. Employers now will be able to operate new tracking systems — already common in other ports — that will allow more efficient movement of cargo containers off ships.

"A modern waterfront will create new jobs, strengthen our economy and enable us to better maintain port security," association President Joseph Miniace said.

The ILWU had urged its 10,500 members to approve the agreement, which was brokered with the help of a federal mediator after President Bush intervened in October to reopen the 29 West Coast ports. Votes were cast earlier this month and tallied yesterday at union headquarters in San Francisco. The contract is effective Feb. 1.

The PMA shut down the ports for nearly two weeks in response to what it said were intentional slowdowns by dockworkers. The lockout stranded hundreds of cargo ships before the busy holiday season and cost the economy millions, White House officials said.

Negotiations, which had been going on for months before the lockout, lurched forward during the 80-day cooling-off period after the docks reopened. Shippers accused dockworkers of continued slowdowns and dockworkers argued that the backlog of containers was to blame for the slow pace. The breakthrough came in November after marathon meetings.

"If you take a look at the lockout, the employers themselves lost a lot of money on the lockout and certainly more than the union members did," said union spokesman Steve Stallone.

But the PMA said there was pressure on all sides to reach an agreement.

"There was no question toward the end of the negotiations that there was a need to get to an agreement, not only for the sake of the PMA and the union, but frankly, for the economic well-being of the country," spokesman Jason Greenwald said.

The two sides sparred over wages and pension benefits, but the key sticking point was the introduction of new technology. The union worried that clerks who now track cargo containers using clipboards would lose jobs if the PMA introduced a system that uses optical scanners and global positioning satellites. More important for the union was ensuring that it controlled jobs created by the technology. Otherwise it would lose control over some of the most import work on the docks.

Although no current ILWU clerks would lose their jobs, technology improvements are expected to wipe out 400 to 600 positions.

Attrition and early retirement will account for many of them, but how employers will keep all of today's clerks busy for years to come is unclear.

"It's worthwhile keeping in mind that technology implementation doesn't happen in a single day or month," Greenwald said. "This will be a process that will take some time."