[ OUR OPINION ]
TENTATIVE agreement on a six-year labor contract between West Coast shippers and longshoremen provides relief for Hawaii merchants and consumers who rely on cargo from the mainland. The relief is not just immediate, for the pact will resolve issues that had the potential of returning in future contract talks. Instead, it has the potential of achieving labor peace well into the future. Bush injunction
prevents cargo chaos
THE ISSUE West Coast shippers and the ILWU have reached tentative agreement on a contract, ending the threat of further work stoppage.
The dispute prompted shippers to lock out 10,500 union workers from West Coast ports for 11 days until President Bush properly used the Taft-Hartley Act to obtain a court injunction ordering them to reopen. The 80-day court-ordered "cooling off" period expires Dec. 27.
Bush's bold action was needed to avoid economic chaos and endangerment of national security, although some observers were skeptical. They noted that the last attempt to use the Taft-Hartley Act -- President Carter's attempt to end the 1978 national coal strike -- ended in failure.
Bush's action came only a few days after shippers agreed to exempt Alaska and Hawaii from its lockout, but the reliability of the exemption, especially past the cooling-off period, was tenuous. Under any circumstance, Hawaii would not have been able to escape the economic disaster resulting from a prolonged work stoppage.
A central part of the dispute was the shippers' desire to introduce technology that already is used at other ports around the world but which would require less manpower -- technology such as optical scanners, remote cameras, geopositioning satellites and even bar-code readers. These tools not only will improve efficiency but will provide needed security against terrorism.
International Longshore and Warehouse Union negotiators finally agreed to allow introduction of the technology, although it will cause the loss of some 400 union jobs. Workers who now hold those jobs will be given other ILWU positions until their retirement. Also, the ILWU gained jurisdiction over some jobs not now part of the bargaining unit.
That part of the agreement will not greatly affect ILWU members in Hawaii, where much of the technology already is in place. ILWU talks in Hawaii have been in limbo awaiting settlement of the West Coast talks; a variation of the wage and pension increases is likely to be adopted here, as in the past.
Six years is twice the length of past ILWU contracts. The large pension increases were tied to the introduction of new technology, "and the only realistic way they could (pay for) that is over a six-year period of time," according to federal mediator Peter Hurtgen. The result is good news for people reliant on stability in the shipping industry.
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