Los Angeles port strike to go to federal mediation

A federal mediator will be called in to help resolve an eight-day strike that has cost the economy billions of dollars while paralyzing the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, officials said Tuesday.

Striking clerical workers and shippers agreed to mediation after an all-night bargaining session that continued into the morning, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced.

"The goal is to get back today, if we could, and I'm certainly hopeful that can happen," he said at a news conference.
The ports handle more than 40 percent of the cargo arriving in the United States by water.
Everything from food to fireworks, textiles to high-tech electronics, move through the docks and onto trucks and trains, headed to warehouses and distribution centers across the country.

The union said it would continue the strike, which Villaraigosa said has affected some 20,000 jobs.

Several hundred clerical workers from a unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have been wrangling with 14 shipping terminal operators for 2½ years over a new contract. The workers claim the shippers are outsourcing their well-paid jobs overseas — a claim the shippers deny.

Villaraigosa, who flew back from a trip to South America to join the talks late Monday, said he saw progress in the negotiations.
However, both sides said they remain far apart on core issues.

"If it's close to any agreement, it's what kind of bagels we're going to bring in for breakfast," said Steve Getzug of the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor Employers Association, which is representing management in the talks.

Villaraigosa has "been helpful in getting folks closer but they're not there and there's still work to do," added Craig Merrilees, a union spokesman.
About 400 of the 600 unionized shipping clerks walked off the job on Nov. 27, and 10,000 members of their sister union, which represents dockworkers, refused to cross the picket lines.
That quickly shut down 10 of the ports' 14 terminals.
The clerks handle everything from filing invoices and bills to making sure cargo moves off the dock quickly and gets where it's supposed to go.
As the strike moved into its second week, labor experts said it was idling thousands of truckers who can't pick up cargo and disrupting rail traffic that could lead to empty warehouses across the nation.

"We estimate that the two ports handle about a billion dollars worth of cargo a day," said Art Wong, spokesman for the Port of Long Beach. "Three-quarters of the port complex is shut down, meaning $760 million a day worth of goods are just idled."

Some cargo vessels have been diverted to other ports while others remain stuck in the twin harbors awaiting loading or unloading.

Union leaders maintain that management wants to save money by outsourcing workers' jobs to places like China and Taiwan, where it can pay half the money for the same work. The result, they say, would be one more American sector taking an economic hit just to boost a giant company's profit margins.

Management maintains it won't outsource any jobs but it wants more flexibility for hiring future employees so it doesn't have to pay people to fill slots that aren't needed. It contends that the union wants "featherbedding" contract language requiring artificial staffing levels.

On Monday, the Harbor Trucking Association asked the Federal Maritime Commission to get involved, and the National Retail Federation called on President Barack Obama to do something.

Former President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act in 2002 to end a 10-day dockworkers lockout that had spread across the West Coast.

As they continue to negotiate, both sides say wages, pensions, vacations and other benefits are not an issue.

The union says average clerical salaries are $41 an hour, or about $87,000 a year. When benefits are factored in, that raises annual compensation to $165,000, Getzug said.