Why business interests are urging early labor talks for L.A., Long Beach dockworkers

Among the most highly paid blue-collar workers in the United States, West Coast dockworkers will decide next month whether to enter labor talks three years before their contract expires.

The unusual push for early negotiations comes amid pressure from manufactures, retailers and other local, regional and national groups dependent on the ports to move everything from flat-screen TVs from China to Central Califoia grain for export as consumer demand for fast, cheap products continues.

Delegates representing 20,000 Inteational Longshore and Warehouse Union workers at 29 ports will meet at district headquarters in San Francisco from Aug. 10-12 to discuss whether to extend their current five-year contract, which expires on July 1, 2019.

Contentious contract talks nearly brought West Coast ports to a halt in 2015, with the ILWU members and their employers, the Pacific Maritime Association, blaming each other for major shipping slowdowns. It got so tough that U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez intervened to break the nearly yearlong impasse. A deal was inked in February 2015, eight months after the contract expired.

“This is an important democratic process,” said Craig Merrilees, an ILWU spokesman. “The point is to have a discussion by the membership.”

ILWU President Robert McEllrath called for the caucus to bring 100 delegates representing ILWU locals. The delegates are chosen by rank-and-file workers.

In March, PMA President James C. McKea asked the union to start talks on a contract extension. He said a contract would strengthen the West Coast position as a gateway for Asian trade in the face of increased competition from a widened Panama Canal.

“An extension, if one can be achieved, would benefit both ILWU and PMA members in this competition by strengthening shippers’ confidence in our ports and reassuring communities of an extended period of stability and reliability for those ports, which are so important to the national economy and, particularly, the economies of the West Coast states,” McKea stated in the letter.

Considered the linchpin of trade from Asia, the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports moved 37 percent of all the nation’s imports, but its reputation was deeply damaged by the long labor stalemate.

Since 2009, the twin port complex has been losing its market share of containerized imports from Asia. Harming the ports are the scenes that played out last year, when up to 30 hulking cargo ships were moored offshore as they waited to pull up to dock. Retailers complained their inventories were held up and farmers feared their product would rot.

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“We are going to hear what they have to say, we are going to decide then and there,” said Paul Trani, president of ILWU Local 63, representing 1,100 marine clerks in the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.

But he cautioned, “there is no point in going forward with a contract extension if there are unresolved issues in this contract.”

Unpaid medical insurance claims is a point of contention with his members, Trani said.

The ILWU’s East Coast counterpart already has begun discussions on its contract, which is set to expire in September 2018.

“The last thing they want to do is chase cargo away again,” said Jonathan Gold, a supply chain expert at the National Retail Federation. “We want to avoid at all costs what happened in the last negotiation.”

Gold, part of a coalition of more than 100 local, state and national trade associations, said West Coast ports need to establish an image as stable and reliable. To that end, he urged the two parties to sit down and work on a contract extension.

“Regardless of who is at fault, cargo can shift. With the extended (Panama) canal now open, people are looking at other gateways.”