Oct. 5, 2017
The International Longshore and Warehouse union will turn to organizing supervisors at other terminals in Southern California, and possibly the entire coast, after successfully negotiating a contract for newly-organized supervisors at the APL terminal.
However, it will be a slow and risky process for both labor and management. If the ILWU’s organizing efforts at other terminals are successful, the traditional relationship between management and labor, the intra-union dynamics between supervisors and foremen, and eventually decisions on how cargo is handled on behalf of beneficial cargo owners, will be forever changed.
In order to organize management supervisors and then negotiate contracts for them, the union must proceed on a terminal-by-terminal basis. The ILWU may have to use its greatest form of leverage, shutting down a facility, in order to gain the contract concessions it wants from the terminal operator. Also, the timing must be right. In order to ensure that a picket line can stand and cargo-handling ceases, the case must be assigned to an arbitrator that was appointed by the ILWU.
This complex and time-consuming process began earlier in the year when ILWU Local 63 convinced management supervisors at five terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach -- APL-Eagle Marine, Pasha Terminals and Stevedoring, California United Terminals, Ports America-ITS and Everport -- to sign pledge cards. Each case was then brought before the National Labor Relations Board to certify the votes.
The NLRB certified the votes at four of the terminals, but the Everport vote is still under review. CUT went out of business, so all of the management supervisors at that facility lost their jobs. ILWU Local 63 then focused its efforts on Pasha. When contract negotiations reached an impasse, Local 63 stationed a picket line at the Pasha terminal and longshoremen refused to cross it, shutting down cargo operations. However, an arbitrator was called in, and that arbitrator, who had been appointed by the Pacific Maritime Association, ruled that the picket line was not bona fide. Longshoremen returned to their jobs while the case was appealed to a three-member arbitration board, which is still considering it.
Last Thursday, with contract negotiations underway at the APL terminal, Local 63 posted a picket line and longshoremen refused to cross it. An arbitrator was called in, and this time it was an arbitrator that had been appointed by the ILWU. He ruled that the picket was bona fide, so the terminal remained shut down for all shifts on Thursday and Friday, into Saturday. Later that day a contract agreement was reached and the pickets were removed.
The details of the APL contract have not been released, although Local 63 reportedly had been seeking to almost double the supervisor wages to about $150,000 and to increase the supervisor positions in the unit that had been organized from six to 10. With a contract in hand, Local 63 can be expected to seek similar terms from Pasha and ITS, and Everport, depending upon how the appeal from that case turns out.
There are 13 container terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach, so Local 63 can be expected to use the terms of the APL contract to convince management supervisors at other terminals in Southern California to vote in favor of joining the union. If Local 63 successfully organizes other terminals, the marine clerk locals in Oakland and the Northwest Seaport Alliance of Seattle-Tacoma may choose to attempt to organize supervisors at terminals in those ports.
This process entails risk for labor as well as management. In order to minimize their exposure, terminals in Southern California have already reportedly eliminated a total of about 50 supervisor positions, thereby reducing the pool of management personnel that can potentially be organized. Salaries for the remaining management supervisors have been increased in an effort to convince them to remain management. However, employers say they cannot pay supervisors $150,000 a year.
The dynamics of relationships at the terminals are also changing. Supervisors that vote to join the union will be held in suspicion by the individual terminal operators at terminals where the ILWU’s organizing efforts may fail. At terminals where the ILWU organizing efforts succeed, the relationship between newly-organized marine clerk supervisors and ILWU foremen, which belong to another ILWU local, will be changed and friction could result.
In a larger sense, management questions how supervisors who now pledge their allegiance to the ILWU rather than the terminal operator, foster productivity at their facilities. “You can’t serve two masters,” one manager stated.
Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at bill.mongelluzzo@ihsmarkit.com and follow him on Twitter: @billmongelluzzo.