Federal mediators sail into dispute at ports including Oakland
Enter the mediators, “prepared and ready to render prompt assistance” to end a six-month standoff between shippers and dockworkers that has worsened congestion and problems at the Port of Oakland and across the West Coast.
The acting director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service made the announcement Tuesday, after receiving what the agency called “a request for assistance” from the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines and terminal operators at 29 West Coast ports, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, representing 20,000 West Coast longshore workers.
“It’s a promising development,” said Jock O’Connell, international trade adviser at Beacon Economics in Los Angeles, citing the agency’s role in settling contract issues dividing East Coast dockworkers and terminal operators in 2012.
According to association statements, longshore workers earn on average $147,000 a year — a figure ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees, in an e-mail, labeled “demonstrably false” and “irresponsible.”
Neither side has spelled out specifics, but the maintenance and repair of truck chassis (on which containers are loaded for transport) is one the union has reportedly set its sights on.
Chassis are outsourced to equipment-leasing companies that are often located outside the ports, an arrangement both sides agree has contributed to long delays and serious congestion at West Coast ports.
“In last year’s East/Gulf Coast port negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance, the ILA won a concession that its people would control maintenance of chassis,” said O’Connell.
“Even when a contract is signed, though, the fundamental problems with the industry will likely remain,” said Cory Peters, vice president of drayage operations at Gardner Trucking in Manteca (San Joaquin County), which transports cargo in and out of the Port of Oakland on a daily basis.
In its statement, the Port of Oakland, which is not involved in the contract negotiations, acknowledged there have been “productivity declines that slowed trade flow,” especially in recent weeks, citing unresolved labor-management issues as “one of the principal causes.”