Dockworkers reach deal SAN FRANCISCO >> West Coast longshoremen and shipping companies hailed a tentative agreement reached yesterday on computer technology that would make hundreds of union jobs obsolete, the major sticking point in their bitter contract talks.
on technology
The issue was a major
sticking point in talksStaff and news service reports
The deal to track waterfront cargo more efficiently was seen as the first tangible progress since a 10-day lockout of dockworkers last month shut down 29 major Pacific ports.
"The parties have worked long and hard," said federal mediator Peter Hurtgen.
Shipping companies are seeking to modernize ports to use computerized records of what cargo is stacked where on each vessel and in each yard. Often that information is already in electronic form when the cargo is loaded at another Pacific Rim port, but clerks now retype the data, slowing the movement of cargo but preserving union positions.
The two West Coast-Hawaii shipping lines, Matson Navigation Co. and CSX Lines, declined to comment yesterday on the apparent progress in the West Coast negotiations.
Hawaii spokesmen for the waterfront workers union and the management side were not available for comment.
Matson said earlier this week that the new technology being proposed in the labor talks does not apply to it directly because it concerns terminal operations. Matson does not have its own terminal facilities. In Hawaii both Matson and CSX use terminals operated by local stevedoring companies.
But traditionally, Hawaii negotiations wait for a West Coast settlement, and local contracts have terms similar to those worked out on the mainland.
In terms of overall progress, both Hawaii shippers said delays in deliveries to Hawaii are becoming shorter. "Los Angeles is really where the problem is," said Jeff Hull, a spokesman at Matson headquarters in San Francisco.
The timetable went wrong right after a federal injunction forced the docks open Oct. 9. It got worse and then improved a little, Hull said.
CSX said it has also seen its West Coast turnaround times improve, although there are still delays.
"The time it takes to get ships in and out of Los Angeles has gone from eight or nine days to five or six," said Marvin Buchanan, CSX director of marketing and pricing for Alaska and Hawaii, who is based in Seattle.
The technology agreement, which was reached before dawn yesterday after all-night talks, clearly entailed compromise on both sides.
The 10,500-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union had insisted it would only agree to cuts in the number of marine clerks, whose jobs will be obsolete with a freer flow of electronic information, if the Pacific Maritime Association agreed that new jobs created by the technology be under the union's jurisdiction.
Though the short-term job loss numbers were not clear yesterday, both sides have said around 400 clerk positions would be eliminated under various technology proposals that have been floated since talks began in the spring.
Union spokesman Steve Stallone emphasized that the deal on technology has not been the only issue separating the two sides, and if talks break up over issues such as pensions and arbitration of disputes, the technology deal could be moot.
Talks were continuing yesterday afternoon on these other issues.
Star-Bulletin staff writer Russ Lynch and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Pacific Maritime Association
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
