Strike threat could affect Hawai'i dockworkers
Advertiser Staff and News Services
SAN FRANCISCO — With a contract deadline looming, negotiations aren't going well between shippers and dockworkers who move billions of dollars of goods each year through West Coast ports, a union official said yesterday.
The pessimistic comments are the first public word on the talks, which began May 13, since a self-imposed news blackout. The contract expires Monday.
A strike or a lockout of employees could have deep repercussions for the world economy.
"This is definitely unsettling. This is not what you want to hear," said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.
The contract between Hawai'i longshore workers and their employers also expires next week. Talks between the two sides are set to begin today, according to Mel Chang, communications director with Local 142 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Chang said the first session is likely to set ground rules and "probably make some provision for the extension of the contract."
Hawai'i's 500 longshore workers generally pattern their requests for raises and benefits after their West Coast counterparts, union officials here have said. But technological changes that concern the union are far more advanced at West Coast ports, Chang said.
Still, some Hawai'i shippers have taken precautions in the event of service disruptions linked to the West Coast contract talks, according to spokesmen for Hawai'i's two major shipping firms, Matson Navigation Co. and CSX Lines.
Matson spokesman Jeff Hull said the company had seen a "general increase" in the past month in the volume of goods shipped from the West Coast to Hawai'i, especially food and beverages.
Matson added a sailing last week from San Francisco to Honolulu to accommodate the additional freight, Hull said. Normally it would have had three West Coast- Hawai'i sailings last week.
"We're hopeful that the negotiations will not result in any disruptions to cargo flow to Hawai'i, particularly given the current economic environment in Hawai'i and the Mainland as well," Hull said. "Certainly Hawai'i cannot afford anything that would discourage tour-ism at this time."
Brian Taylor, CSX Lines vice president/general manager for Hawai'i-Guam, said his company had seen an increase in "certain segments" of cargo shipments. "Food and beverage is one, and newsprint is another," he said, where increases were "noticeable."
"I think everybody is being prudent at the moment," Taylor said. "I think both sides involved in the negotiations are trying to be prudent and do the right thing. And I think some of the retailers and others who have some concerns are also trying to make prudent and right decisions to ensure everyone in Hawai'i is protected."
Steve Stallone, the union's West Coast spokesman, said yesterday that an agreement was possible before the July 1 deadline, but negotiators had yet to delve into pivotal issues, including technological changes that shipping companies want to increase efficiency.
The association that represents the companies wants to cut healthcare coverage and freeze wages for three years, Stallone said. The companies disputed those points.
The contract between the Pacific Maritime Association and 10,500 West Coast longshoremen controls the flow of goods through all 29 major U.S. Pacific ports. Last year that trade amounted to $260 billion in cargo.
Outside observers thought the major sticking point would be how to bring new technology to ports that are less efficient than rivals in Asia and Europe. But both sides said they had not yet reached the key issue of modernization.
With the ports handling goods that reach every state in the union, the implications for businesses and consumers could be grim.
"A contentious shutdown of the West Coast docks carries the very real risk of triggering a sudden crisis in international financial markets," wrote Stephen S. Cohen, a regional planning professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Pacific Maritime Association spokesman Jack Suite said the union was mischaracterizing the talks, and chided its members for breaking the news blackout.
The association "has no interest in reducing benefits, but has made proposals which are designed to provide benefits in a more efficient and cost-effective manner, and other proposals that increase the level of benefits," Suite said.
Stallone said the union doesn't object to reducing employers' healthcare costs — as long as that does not mean a cut in benefits that the union first won in the early 1960s.
"They're just whacking at our health plan and it's totally unacceptable," Stallone said. "We're not trying to stick it to them — we just want our benefits."
Suite called the longshoremen's package "the gold standard in America," and said the association had proposed paying $335 million in benefits by 2005 — up from $143 million in 1999.
Suite also said longshoremen are handsomely paid. A full-time longshoreman earned $107,000 last year, according to maritime association records; a full-time foreman averaged $167,000.
As both sides continue to meet, businesses have been stockpiling goods from Asia in case a labor disruption slows deliveries to a trickle. West Coast docks have seen strikes in 1934, 1936-1937, 1948 and 1971.
