Work-stoppage disputes now may prompt suits

Fed up with a wave of job actions, employers say the only way to dissuade illegal disruptions is to make the union pay.

BY BILL MONGELLUZZO
JOURNAL OF COMMERCE STAFF

LOS ANGELES -- Internal arbitration -- the time-honored system that West Coast waterfront employers and leaders of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union use to settle their differences -- has been shattered.

It is being replaced by an aggressive employers' organization that brings the union to court and files multimillion-dollar damage claims whenever the ILWU engages in what employers believe are illegal work stoppages.

Shipowners and terminal operators lose as much as $50,000 a day when a modern container vessel is idled by a job action. They say the only way to prevent longshore workers from engaging in maverick work stoppages is to make them pay when their job actions are clearly a violation of the contract.

"We're not trying to act tough," said Joseph Miniace, president of the employers group, the Pacific Maritime Association. "The only thing we're doing is asking the union to be accountable for what they do."

Exhausted the system

The ILWU says Mr. Miniace, who became PMA president two years ago, is single-handedly changing a system of arbitration that has been in existence for decades. Under that system, employers and the ILWU bring all grievances to a mutually agreed-upon local arbitrator. If the disagreement is not resolved there, it goes to the coast arbitration level.

"For decades, we've had a system of honor and trust," said ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone. "We wouldn't stop until we exhausted the arbitration system. We kept the courts out of this. Miniace bypasses the arbitration system and goes directly to court. This is not how things have been done."

Under the PMA-ILWU arbitration system, a local arbitrator is called to the job site as soon as dockworkers stop working. These work stoppages occur for any number of reasons. For example, if an ILWU member is disciplined for showing up late or being drunk on the job, longshore workers at that job site have sometimes walked out to protest the disciplinary action. The precipitating incident could be part of a larger movement. This type of walkout occurred in September when the vessel Neptune Jade arrived at the Port of Oakland. Longshore workers in a number of countries stopped working in solidarity with dockers who were fired in Liverpool, England.

Whatever the cause, the local arbitrator listens to both sides and renders a decision. If the job action is ruled legal, the PMA can appeal to a higher level. If the job action is found to be illegal, the longshoremen normally return to work.

The arbitration process can take several hours or longer. It costs the vessel owner and terminal operator thousands of dollars and can throw a vessel off-schedule or cause inbound containers to miss intermodal connections.

Nevertheless, individual employers for many years did not complain. Rather than angering the steady workers they employ and risk an endless string of slowdowns or questionable health and safety claims, most employers have looked at this as a cost of doing business.

Taking advantage

Over the past two years, though, employers began to feel that some ILWU locals were abusing the arbitration system by engaging in work stoppages they knew from the beginning were illegal.

These employers began to agree with Mr. Miniace that the union would only stop engaging in frivolous job actions if it had to pay for illegal work stoppages.

Earlier this year, the PMA filed an unfair labor charge with the National Labor Relations Board after dockworkers in Southern California struck for four days in solidarity with port pilots who were on strike. The pilots are also affiliated with the ILWU.

The PMA also filed a federal court suit against the ILWU locals, seeking damages in excess of $3 million.

In another action, the PMA is appealing a court decision that denied employers damages for a 1995 coastwide strike that ensued after two union members were disciplined in Seattle.

It was the PMA litigation following the Neptune Jade incident in September, however, that really has the union upset.

In addition to going after the ILWU locals in Northern California, the PMA is seeking damages from individual picketers, including members of groups that have no affiliation with the waterfront or the ILWU.

"He (Mr. Miniace) is going after private individuals -- every individual who even attended a meeting. This is getting into free speech issues," Mr. Stallone said. "This has never happened before." Last weekend, the ILWU executive board formally demanded that the PMA drop its charges in the Neptune Jade matter.

Every time we pivot

At minimum, the spate of litigation has forced the ILWU to be more cautious. Recent job actions have been minimal, and local union leaders have refused to speak publicly about incidents in their jurisdiction. "We're getting sued every time we turn around," said an ILWU official in Southern California.

The impact of the litigation could be much more dramatic, though, if the PMA wins any of its multi-million-dollar suits, because it could bankrupt the ILWU. "Clearly we don't have millions of dollars," Mr. Stallone said.

The litigation comes at a time when the PMA and ILWU have been cooperating on other fronts. For example, during the gridlock that hit the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex in September and October, the two sides hired and trained hundreds of longshore workers, while experienced ILWU members from northern ports traveled to Southern California to help relieve the congestion.

"I hope the lawsuits won't jeopardize the cooperation that exists," Mr. Miniace said. "The whole purpose is to make the union accountable for its actions. There's no big message here other than to be accountable."