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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, October 8, 2002

Bush moves toward reopening ports

By Scott Lindlaw
Associated Press

Dozens of ships were idle in the harbors of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., yesterday. President Bush plans to petition to halt the lockout.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Bush is expected to seek an 80-day suspension of a West Coast lockout that has crippled trade, after he reviews a report on the labor dispute's impact by a special panel he created yesterday.

It would mark the first effort in a quarter-century to end a work stoppage under the Taft-Hartley Act.

Bush created a board of inquiry to determine the impact of the lockout, and planned to petition the U.S. District Court in San Francisco today to halt the lockout for 80 days, a Labor Department official said.

Yesterday's move came hours after contract negotiations between workers and management collapsed.

Port operators and manufacturers' groups applauded the move, but the longshoremen accused the administration of trying to break the union. The workers have been locked out, without pay, by management for more than a week.

Even as the Bush administration took steps to reopen West Coast ports, the economic toll of the shutdown was rising fast: analysts have estimated the losses at anywhere from $1 billion to $2 billion a day as manufacturers run low on parts, exporters lose sales and retailers watch supplies of key merchandise dwindle.

While Hawai'i businesses had been stocking up on supplies for weeks as contract talks grew increasingly tense — and the state late last week received an exemption that allows cargo to be shipped to the Islands — the first ship doesn't arrive until Friday and some businesses are beginning to feel the squeeze.

At Star Market yesterday on Kaua'i, a sign said product availability is "at a critical level. In order to make products available for everyone in our community, all sale prices will be discontinued temporarily."

A Star Market worker on Kaua'i referred questions to Star officials on O'ahu, who could not be reached for comment yesterday.

In his executive order yesterday, Bush gave the board of inquiry one day to report back to him, and the Labor Department official said the administration would ask the U.S. District Court in San Francisco for an 80-day cooling-off period.

Though the administration promised an unbiased examination of the lockout, Bush appeared to have made up his mind that it was hurting national security and the economy, and merited federal intervention.

"A continuation of this lockout, if permitted to continue, will imperil the national health and safety," Bush wrote in his executive order.

The labor department also warned that the lockout could hurt national security, because the armed forces and defense contractors rely on commercial ships that use West Coast ports.

The formation of a board of inquiry — a step taken only rarely by presidents — is required under the Taft-Hartley Act before the president can order management to let the workers back in. Bush's next step would be to make his case in federal court, with Attorney General John Ashcroft asking for a ruling that the dispute is hurting entire industries and jeopardizing national health or safety.

If an injunction is granted by the court, the ports could be reopened in a matter of one or two days. But historically, cooling-off periods have failed to permanently end labor disputes.

Labor Department Solicitor Eugene Scalia told reporters that there had been 11 coast-wide dock work stoppages since the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947 and in all of those cases, the president sought injunctions after convening a board of inquiry.

In at least eight of those instances, the 80-day cooling-off period failed to resolve the dispute and the work stoppage resumed once it was over.

"Experience shows that this simply delays the settlement process," said Michael LeRoy, professor of labor and industrial relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "It does not end the dispute by any means. Typically what happens is the parties go back to their corners and stew."

Just before the 80 days end, "they rush back to the table more angry than they were 80 days before," he said.

But a cooling-off period would keep the ports open during the crucial Christmas season, in which retailers are relying on imported goods to stock their shelves. The tradeoff for the Bush administration, LeRoy said, is that a mandatory cooling-off period could energize organized labor — traditionally a Democratic ally — just before midterm elections.

Jimmy Carter was the last president to seek to use Taft-Hartley to end a work stoppage in the coal industry in 1978. The court refused to order the 80-day cooling off period but did order miners back to work under a temporary restraining order. Bush would be the first president to invoke Taft-Hartley during a lockout, as opposed to a strike, LeRoy said.

The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping companies and terminal operators, has locked out 10,500 members of the longshore union, claiming the dockworkers engaged in a work slowdown late last month.

The association ordered the unpaid lockout until the union agrees to a new contract, or to extend a contract that expired July 1. The main disputes are over pensions and other benefits, and whether jobs created by new technology will be unionized.

PMA President Joseph Miniace praised Bush's move.

"The ports are going to be open soon and this crisis we are in will be over," he said.

But James Spinosa, president of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, said, "The government, along with the corporate world, are trying to break unions."

Labor talks broke off in San Francisco late Sunday night after the union rejected the latest contract proposal.

The White House estimated the lockout, which entered its second week Sunday, is costing the economy up to $1 billion a day. Robert Parry, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said it is costing $2 billion a day.

The number of cargo vessels stranded at West Coast docks or backing up at anchor points has risen to 200. Dozens more were still en route from Asia. Already, storage facilities at beef, pork and poultry processing facilities across the country are full — crammed with produce that can't be exported.

Bush named to the board of inquiry former Sen. Bill Brock, R-Tenn., a former U.S. trade representative and labor secretary; Patrick Hardin, a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law and one-time National Labor Relations Board official; and Dennis R. Nolan, a professor at the University of South Carolina law school and vice president of the National Academy of Arbitrators.

• • •

Yesterday's dock developments:

  • The number of cargo ships waiting to be unloaded at West Coast ports has grown to more than 200.
  • The worst backlog is in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the third-largest harbor complex in the world. About 120 cargo vessels are either docked in port or at outlying anchorages.
  • Some retail associations, such as the West Coast Waterfront Coalition, are advising their membership that restoring the ports to normal operations will take four to six days for each day the harbors are closed.
  • Officials for the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, which represents more than 10,500 West Coast dockworkers, said labor shortages are likely whenever the ports reopen.
  • Some observers said untangling the huge backlog of cargo might take four to six weeks of round-the-clock work.
  • United Parcel said it added two 747 flights nationwide for air cargo as companies are starting to worry that they won't get the goods they need in time for the holidays.
  • The Korea International Trade Association said South Korean exporters are suffering daily losses of $50.5 million due to the shutdown. About two-thirds of the country's $12.8 billion in exports to the United States go through West Coast ports.
  • Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said its only U.S. plant in Normal, Ill., will halt production today because the shutdown has reduced supplies of parts needed to make passenger cars.
  • Dole Food Co., the world's largest fruit and vegetable producer, sued the Pacific Maritime Association to retrieve 8 million pounds of bananas sitting at the Port of Los Angeles. Dole is seeking a court order to get more than 240 containers of bananas and plantains that have been at the port since Sept. 26. Dole estimates that the value of shipment, which will ripen within two days, is more than $1.7 million.