West Coast shippers, union still bargaining
A six-year dockworkers' contract expired last night. Both sides vowed to keep ports operating.
LOS ANGELES - Thousands of West Coast dockworkers are working without a contract after negotiators failed to reach an agreement yesterday on a new labor pact.
Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said workers agreed to stay on the job while negotiations continued.
The previous six-year contract with shipping companies expired yesterday.
Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shippers and terminal operators, said the organization was committed to keeping West Coast ports running.
Contract talks began in March. About 26,000 workers would be affected at 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington.
The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle about 40 percent of the nation's cargo.
Combined, the ports moved 12.2 million cargo containers last year and accounted for an annual domestic impact of $1.2 trillion, or about 11 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, according to the association.
Both sides are hoping to avoid a repeat of a bitter labor dispute that led to a 10-day lockout in 2002 and caused an estimated $15 billion in economic losses.
Last month, the union and the shippers disclosed they had reached a tentative agreement on health-care benefits. Wage, pension, safety and productivity issues remained under discussion.
Paul Bingham, an economist with the research firm Global Insight Inc., said last week that a prolonged labor disruption could prompt shippers to permanently reroute their goods through Canada, Mexico or the Panama Canal.
"They have to keep in mind that if they scare away some business, they might not get it back, because there are more alternatives than there ever were before," Bingham said.
Shippers have said the average full-time dockworker made $136,000 in 2007, placing the workers among the best-paid blue-collar laborers in the nation.
The union disputes that figure, stressing that only about 10,000 of the 25,000 workers covered by the current contract work full time or more hours.