Posted on 07/16/2007 3:50:54 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot
LOS ANGELES - Negotiators for a clerical union and some of the world's largest shipping lines and terminal operators worked past a strike deadline Monday to try to reach a contract deal and avert a shutdown of the nation's largest port complex.
The union's deadline had been 12:01 a.m. Monday, but negotiations continued. Workers remained on the job Monday morning and there was no disruption of port operations.
John Fageaux Jr., president of the office clerical unit of Local 63, a division of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said the 750 clerks would strike if talks with employers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach collapsed.
"We're in the process of presenting our last, best and final offer," he said. It could take several hours for the employers to review the offer after it is submitted.
Steve Berry, lead negotiator for the 14 marine terminal operators and other firms who employ the office clerks, wouldn't predict a timetable.
"We're working hard. We just keep going," he said.
The 15,000-member ILWU has indicated that longshoremen would honor picket lines if the clerks strike. That would effectively shut down loading and unloading operations at the neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The port complex accounts for 40 percent of all the cargo container traffic coming into the United States.
A work stoppage could create ripple effects throughout many industries that depend on timely movement of cargo. It also would come as the ports enter their busy pre-holiday season, when shippers depend on the facilities to handle imports.
The clerks work at marine terminals and handle bookings for the export of cargo and other transport documents.
Under their most recent contract, full-time, port clerical workers earned about $37.50 an hour, or $78,000 a year. They also receive a pension, health care benefits free of premiums, and 20 paid holidays a year.
Berry said Monday that employers' latest offer included raises that over the life of a three-year contract would bump the employees' hourly pay to $39.50; the union is seeking increases that would equal $53 per hour by the last year of the contract.
In 2002, longshore workers across the West Coast were locked out for 10 days over a contract dispute. The shutdown cost the nation's economy an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion a day.
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Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this report.
NAFTA superhighway, now!
No doubt dragnet2 thinks these workers could be earning more working on a manufacturing assembly line. After all, services just don't pay.
WTF!!! Fire every last one of the idiots. Making 78K a year with all of those other perks...for clerical work...and that's not enough for them?
They want $53 an hour...WTF!! I remember when the longshoremen there went on strike a few years ago, making money that Democrats would describe as “rich folks”.
Some are making 150,000 with overtime.
God help these fools if their pay actually reflected the market and their skills.
After 10 years it will be worth it.
Plus, the union thugs would sell their "union brothers" out in heartbeat.
Less traffic on the 710 freeway!
HA I will bet you most are making over a hundred and hour. Do you know that they still work 2 men for every job( developed during wwII. Both guys show up for work, flip a coin the loser works the 8 hour shift the winner goes home and sleeps ( both collect 8 hours pay)
They haven't been accepting any new applications for seven years. You don't work for the ports unless you know someone, even on the clerical end.
And the longshoreman are going to honor the strike. It would take a lot of guts to cross that picket line.
You gotta be kidding. Right? That's absolutely nuts...
Just close the damn port and send all those containers back where they came from, problem(s) solved.
Pay higher prices, for the children! Brilliant!
Not kidding.
They'll be fine, you on the other hand I'm not so sure about, is it that you have some personal interest in these dumping grounds?
I've mentioned before that I prefer lower prices so I can save money for my children's college fund. Personal enough for you?
WELL...It’s a DARN GOOD THING for our national security that we don’t have a bunch of non-union dirty Dubai Port Workers shutting us down!!!
Arabs or Chinese choking the economy, that’s bad.
Homegrown union thugs holding America hostage, why that’s just fiiiiine!
Gads.
Just fire the un-American union traitors and sell the port to people who will operate it like a business, like Dubai Ports World or those dirty Chinese. Problem solved.
But I do know that a perspective contractor for work on my house described to me the vast upgrades and renovations he was doing for the owner of many (not several - many) rentals in the South Bay.
When I reflected some awe at the investment and income those properties represented - he replied only with:
"He's a retired longshoreman"
No further explanation necessary.
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