ASSOCIATED PRESS
A longshore worker hauled cargo to the Genoa Bridge during operations Sunday at the TransBay shipping terminal in Oakland, Calif.
Isle dock pact next While Hawaii breathes a sigh of relief over a probable settlement of the West Coast waterfront labor dispute, there is no agreement yet on a Hawaii longshore contract.
With the West Coast negotiations
West Coast ports not on cutting edge
likely over, Hawaii’s ILWU
will now sit down at the table
By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.comHowever, there is no immediate threat of a strike in the islands, an event that could shut down shipping to Hawaii just as effectively as a West Coast walkout.
Local talks, which typically don't get to final details until after a West Coast settlement, are proceeding, waterfront sources said.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the companies that employ stevedores in Hawaii had a contract that expired July 1, the same time as the West Coast agreement. Since then, they have been working under mutual extensions of the contract, but now it is expected that Hawaii talks will become more intense.
Throughout the West Coast talks, Hawaii management and union sides held fast to an agreement not to discuss their positions through the media and continue to decline comment.
In Hawaii, waterfront management is represented by the Hawaii Stevedoring Committee within the Hawaii Employers Council. A committee spokesman declined to comment yesterday on the local talks.
ILWU officials could not be reached.
There are several significant differences between the Hawaii contract and the one that involves some 10,000 workers on the West Coast. In Hawaii, stevedores are employees of four companies: Hawaii Stevedores Inc., McCabe Hamilton & Renny Co. and Hawaii Trucking and Terminals Inc., which are stevedoring contractors, and Matson Terminals, part of shipping line Matson Navigation Co.
There are only about 500 full-time ILWU waterfront workers in the islands. Because they work for specific companies, with occasional inter-company personnel loans to meet demand, they don't have to go to union hiring halls like their mainland counterparts to get daily work assignments.
That means there is a more direct employee-employer relationship in Hawaii.
In Hawaii, technology issues were already faced in past agreements, and are not a sticking point, like they were on the West Coast, Hawaii shipping sources say.
The union locals in Hawaii and on the West Coast have always worked closely together. Pay scales usually come close to a match, with Hawaii catching up after a West Coast settlement.
The exact pay scales may be different, but the Hawaii union tries to work out a total benefit package close to what mainland union members have.
Hawaii workers usually get more serious about benefits such as pensions than they do about pay, which tends to be more stable than it is on the West Coast because of the precision of the efficient container shipping between the West Coast and Hawaii.
Seagoing unions, representing deck officers, engineers and sailors, have already agreed to new contracts with the two shipping companies bringing most of Hawaii's goods from the mainland, Matson and CSX Lines, local union officials said.
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SAN FRANCISCO >> The new labor agreement at West Coast ports will bring critical technology to docks from Seattle to San Diego, but the improvements won't be enough to catch up with the world's cutting-edge waterfronts. West Coast ports
not on cutting edge
By Michael Liedtke
Associated PressEven so, the advances included in the proposed six-year contract will represent a quantum leap at 29 West Coast ports stuck in a time warp through the 1990s.
"The productivity of the West Coast ports had been lagging for such a long time that it really was becoming an untenable situation," said Erik Autor, vice president and international trade counsel for the National Retail Federation.
"This won't bring the West Coast ports up to speed with the most efficient ports in the world, but it's a major step in the right direction."
Some of the strides included in the contract seem like baby steps in the Internet age.
For instance, the contract allows shipping companies to introduce bar codes and scanners that became staples at supermarket check-out stands years ago.
The contract also allows e-mail to be forwarded to another destination with a press of a button instead of being retyped all over again by a clerk.
"None of the things that they are doing are exactly rocket science," said industry analyst James Winchester of Lazard Freres. "It's better than it was, but in the long run, those ports are still going to be relatively high-cost operations."
Those costs, though, probably won't be enough to bother consumers who save big money by buying merchandise made by low-paid workers in Asia, Winchester said.
Even if there are still disadvantages to using the West Coast ports, shipping companies have few practical alternatives.
Mexican ports can't handle the shipping volume, and shifting cargo to more technologically advanced East Coast ports isn't easy because today's vessels are too big to go through the Panama Canal, analysts and shipping companies said.
The West Coast port changes are designed to process cargo faster and accelerate the delivery of merchandise, food and factory parts. If that happens, it could help raise productivity and increase the nation's economic growth.
"This contract is going to eliminate a lot of pointless clerical activity in the terminals and let everyone work smarter," said Tom Ward, a principal in charge of marine terminal planning for consultant JWD Group.
Getting cargo off the docks faster has become increasingly important with the growth of international trade. The West Coast boom is expected to continue as China opens more factories and U.S. merchants continue to rely on cheap imports to appeal to bargain-minded consumers.
Shipping lines expect cargo moving through the West Coast ports to double during the next seven years.
The advances included in the new contract "won't bring us to the gold standard, but we think we can now give the other (ports) a run for their money," said Steve Sugarman, a spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping companies.
Most analysts regard the highly automated port in Rotterdam, Netherlands, as the world's most advanced waterfront. Ports in Singapore and Hong Kong also are frequently cited as technological leaders.
In pushing for more technology on the West Coast waterfronts, shipping companies said Singapore's ports process about 20,000 containers per acre annually and Hong Kong processes about 12,500 containers per acre.
In comparison, the West Coast ports process about 4,000 containers per acre each year.
Labor leaders maintain those statistics are misleading because the Asian ports aren't final destinations like major West Coast ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, where unloading is more cumbersome and time consuming.
Dock workers never opposed technology, but wanted to assure the changes didn't eliminate jobs, said International Longhouse and Warehouse Union spokesman Steve Stallone.
The new contract provides job security, as well as significant raises that won't be detailed until the roughly 10,500 affected workers vote on the agreement next month. Under the current contract, dockworkers are paid an average salary of $80,000.
As the technology is introduced over the next few years, about 400 jobs are expected to be eliminated.
If the more technological tools quicken the pace of cargo coming off the Pacific docks, the gains could cause other problems by adding to the congestion on the railroads and highways within the next four years, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.
"We can't just settle into an easy chair and say all the problems are solved," Kyser said.
Pacific Maritime Association
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
