Growing tension at West Coast ports amid partial shutdown

Amid an increasingly damaging labor dispute, 29 West Coast seaports, which handle about $1 trillion of goods annually, will be mostly closed four of the next five days.

The announcement of another shutdown came Wednesday.

Dean McGrath, president of the Tacoma International Longshore Labor Union Local 23, said salaries and benefits have nothing to do with the shutdown.

“Our benefit package has been settled for a long time,” McGrath said in an interview with 770 KTTH’s David Boze.

Companies said they won’t hire crews to load or unload ships Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday. They won’t hire crews for Monday either, when they’d have to pay Presidents Day holiday or weekend wages to dockworkers, who are accused of slowing work to gain leverage in contract talks.

Employers don’t want to pay hourly rates that are at least 50 percent above normal. That would bring a few of the highest-paid dockworkers to close to $100 per hour, according to spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Association Steve Getzug.

The port has problems with congestion, which are not being handled properly, said McGrath.

“They say they are not going to pay overtime wages and clear congestion at the same time,” he said. “You can’t do one without the other.”

Instead, terminal operators could decide to hire smaller crews that would focus on moving already-unloaded containers into the flow of commerce. Full crews would still service military and cruise ships, and any cargo ships bound for Hawaii – but these are small operations compared to work on container ships that are as long as some skyscrapers are tall.

Those ships bring in car parts, furniture, clothing, electronics — just about anything made in Asia and destined for U.S. consumers. Ships then take goods back, exports that include perishables such as rice, hay, nuts and produce.

Cargo has been struggling for months to cross the docks amid historically bad levels of congestion.

Employers blame crowded docks on Longshoremen they say have staged work slowdowns since November. Dockworkers deny slowing down and say cargo is moving slowly for reasons dockworkers do not control, including a shortage of truck beds to take containers to retailers’ distribution warehouses. In recent days, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union said companies are exaggerating to cut dockworker shifts and pressure negotiators into a contract agreement.

In response to Wednesday’s move by employers, the union noted that longshoremen were not hired to load or unload vessels last weekend. It also emphasized that the two sides have not talked across the bargaining table since last Friday.

“The union is standing by ready to negotiate, as we have been for the past several days,” union President Robert McEllrath said in a written statement. He suggested the maritime association is “trying to sabotage negotiations.”

Whatever the causes of the congestion, containers that used to take two or three days to hit the highway have been taking a week or more. Outside ports in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, about three dozen ships are at anchor, awaiting a berth.

Differences over what is causing the cargo backup reflect disputes at the bargaining table.

Negotiations between the maritime association and dockworkers’ union for a new contract were to resume Wednesday in San Francisco, but were canceled despite heavy – and increasing – pressure from elected officials and businesses to reach a deal. The two sides are now scheduled to reconvene Thursday morning, Getzug said.

Talks have stalled over how to arbitrate future workplace disputes. Some of the biggest issues, including health care, have been resolved with tentative agreements.

McGrath said claims of wanting the right to fire arbitrators at the end of a labor contract is not accurate. Currently, both sides must agree to remove an arbitrator.

“That is one of the sticking points,” McGrath told Boze. “But how it is being represented is completely false.”

Though the union and Pacific Maritime Association have admitted the arbitration system is broken, McGrath said the association does not want it fixed.

“They want to keep it,” McGrath said. “Because it gives them the ability to renegotiate later to what they already agreed to.”

The ILWU wants an arbitration agreement that is “fair and representative” of both sides, McGrath said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.