Talks resume, but progress slow in LA-LB clerk strike

TALKS have resumed between striking clerks and shipping companies at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but employers say it`s slow going because the union wants management to hire unneeded staff, reports The Associated Press.

"The main issue facing our members is job security," said John Fageaux, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union`s (ILWU) Office Clerical Unit (OCU) Local 63. "The company has attacked our efforts to maintain job security and stop the use of technology to outsource our work to foreign lands."


But the employers said: "Despite union claims, the harbour employers have not transferred union-represented employee work overseas and have not proposed to do so."


Lead negotiator Stephen Berry of Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor Employers Association, which represents the 14 companies involved, said union members earn an average of US$96,900 a year and that the union demanded a 21 per cent pay increase.


He said union demands would force the employers to hire temporary and permanent workers even when there is no work for them to perform. Mr Berry said.


Members of the clerical workers union of the ILWU picket in front of the Hanjin Terminal, Thursday, July 1 in Long Beach. Clerical workers went on strike Thursday against several terminals, but ships were still being loaded and unloaded, a port spokesman said.


Four terminals were picketed during the day, said the employers while other press reports said as many as six terminals had pickets.


When the picket lines went up after midnight on Thursday, ILWU longshoremen from three Los Angeles area local unions first refused to cross picket lines, but an area arbitrator with jurisdiction, ordered them back to work, ruling that Local 63 OCU had engaged in bad faith bargaining, reported American Shipper.