Caucus of ILWU endorses dock pact
By Justin Pritchard
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — A delegation of leaders from the West Coast dockworkers' union yesterday overwhelmingly endorsed a proposed contract that would bring peace to Pacific ports shuttered this fall during a bitter labor dispute.
The landmark six-year deal, reached with shipping companies last month only after federal intervention, must still be approved by the rank and file of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
That appeared more likely with yesterday's word that 92 percent of the approximately 80 representatives of Pacific ports from San Diego to Seattle urged the ILWU's 10,500 members to ratify the deal.
Going into the caucus, some union members had expressed strong reservations. Though the deal includes handsome benefits and raises that will earn the average longshoreman close to $100,000 per year, critics worried that language opening the docks to a new wave of computer technology did not protect union jobs.
After four days of spirited debate, however, lobbying by union leaders swayed skeptics.
"There wasn't as much opposition as I thought there would be. But there were lots of questions," said union spokesman Steve Stallone.
The new cargo-handling technology — which shipping companies insisted must be part of any deal — topped the list.
Other concerns included a wage scale that puts more distance between the most-skilled foremen and crane operators and the least-skilled workers. Some union members fear that could create an elite class in the union and erode an egalitarian tradition that stretches back to the Great Depression.
"Obviously this is an employer proposal to try to create divisions within the union," Stallone said. "Nobody likes it. But is that what we're going to turn the contract down on?"
The answer, it turned out, was a resounding no.
Representatives of the shipping companies and port terminal operators who sat across the bargaining table greeted the news with relief.
"There was a lot of tension regarding the acceptance, so this is showing the union is going forward," said Joseph Miniace, president of the Pacific Maritime Association. "I think our customers, the shippers, should be excited. We have real productive years ahead of us."
The caustic dispute spilled across the nation at the end of September, when the association locked out dockworkers for 10 days in response to what they believed was a coordinated union slowdown that amounted to a "strike with pay."
The economic importance of the 29 major Pacific ports — which handle more than $300 billion in trade each year — quickly became clear as auto assembly lines shut down for want of foreign-made parts, farmers fretted over perishable cargo and irate truckers idled in miles-long lines.
Only after President Bush used the Taft-Hartley Act to reopen the ports on Oct. 9 did contract talks progress with the subtle cajoling of a federal mediator. Late on the evening of Nov. 23, negotiators from both sides inked a tentative deal.
With the caucus approving that deal, the language now goes to the rank and file, which will likely mail in their ballots in January.
If 60 percent of union members approve the contract, it passes outright. If between 50 and 60 percent vote yes, it still passes — unless enough union members vote no under a formula that protects, among other groupings, smaller ports.
In 1996, for example, 59 percent of union members approved the contract, but the Los Angeles local turned it down — and in the first round, the contract failed. After union leaders lobbied the rank and file, in a subsequent vote the contract passed with 62 percent.
