LOS ANGELES -- With negotiations for a new three-year contract set to begin in four months, West Coast waterfront employers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union already are establishing their battle lines.
An improved benefits package, especially for retired dockworkers, is emerging as a primary demand of the ILWU. The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines and terminal operators, will step up its drive for increased productivity and fewer work stoppages.
The ILWU in mid-March will hold a caucus to finalize its negotiating platform for a new contract. Negotiations with the PMA probably will begin in April, with the intent being to reach an agreement before the current three-year contract expires on July 1.
Since 1999 is expected to be another banner year for imports from Asia, shippers and carriers are closely following developments leading up to contract negotiations. Even the threat of a coastwide strike could result in cargo diversion from West Coast ports.
The tone of the ILWU's bargaining position was brought into sharper focus late last week when ILWU Locals 13 and 63 in Southern California sponsored a community breakfast to seek public support.
It was apparent from presentations at the meeting that dockworkers are concerned about erosion of their lifestyle. West Coast longshoremen are among the highest paid blue-collar workers in the United States, but they fear they will suffer the same fate as other industries that pay middle-class wages.
National studies show that middle-class workers since the mid-1970s have experienced a 10% decline in real wages, when accounting for inflation, said Wally Knox, a member of the California Assembly and chairman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee.
Mr. Knox also chairs the Select Committee on California's Middle Class, a committee that was established to address the erosion of wages and benefits for middle-class workers throughout the state. A recent study determined that from 1994 to 1996, some 156,000 workers fell out of the $40,000-to-$100,000 wage bracket, Mr. Knox told the ILWU gathering.
"The PMA has in mind that longshore should join that trend," Mr. Knox said. "The PMA is appealing to the general public to drive the ILWU out of the middle class."
West Coast longshoremen who worked at least 2,000 hours in 1997 earned an average of $96,865, according to statistics provided by the PMA. Citing those numbers, employers see little danger that dockworkers will lose their middle-class status.
"They're going to have to fall an awfully long way to fall out of the middle class," PMA President Joseph Miniace said.
Dockworkers charge that the PMA figures are misleading because hundreds of so-called casual workers who have not yet earned full union status work significantly fewer hours and earn less than half of what senior dockworkers earn.
The ILWU's demands for wage increases in the new contract will not be determined until the union completes its caucus in March, ILWU President Brian McWilliams said through a spokesman. History demonstrates that money has been an issue in virtually every contract, however.
Other issues of concern to the ILWU are clearer, as evidenced by an educational campaign the union has launched to alert its members to certain core issues that union leaders believe will be under attack. Those issues include the sanctity of the coastwide contract; procedures over job assignments at union dispatch halls; and health and welfare benefits. For example, the ILWU is concerned that retired dockworkers could lose such benefits as medical and dental coverage unless those are made permanent contract provisions. Such benefits currently must be renegotiated with each contract.
Employers are aware of that concern, but it must be addressed in a manner that is actuarially sound, Mr. Miniace said.
"That's a huge, huge benefit they're asking for. It's a $1 billion issue," he said.
The ILWU also wants to improve pensions for its members who retired before 1991. Their pension benefits are less than dockworkers who retired after 1991.
Employers are not expected to spring any surprises on the union when they present their contract demands. The PMA charges that the ILWU over the past two years engaged in more than 150 illegal work stoppages. Employers will seek measures that make it more difficult, and costly, for dockworkers to walk off the job when they know in advance that the job action violates the contract.
"We want a dependable, productive and safe work force," Mr. Miniace said, although he did not elaborate on what specific demands the employers will make in those areas.
Employers also will seek measures designed to improve productivity. This is a broad category that includes changing dispatching procedures to getting workers to their jobs on time, ensuring that they work eight hours for a full day's pay and increasing the amount of cargo moved per man-hour.
The PMA has published figures showing that after more than 20 years of increasing productivity, the tonnage handled per man-hour at West Coast ports leveled off in 1994 and has declined since then.
The ILWU says that measure of productivity is no longer valid because of the Asian financial crisis, which has resulted in a huge imbalance of imported cargo over exports. Mr. Knox of the California Assembly lent his support to the ILWU by noting that returning empty containers to Asia corrupts productivity measurements based on tonnage.
"When arguments are that flimsy, why do they even use them at all?" he said.
Although the war of words is heating up on the waterfront, the atmosphere for negotiations is actually much better now than it was during most of 1998. The PMA last week dropped a lawsuit that had rankled dockworkers, and the ILWU issued a statement of unity that indicates it has resolved a long-festering feud within the union.
Both sides agree that they can now focus on real contract issues rather than extraneous matters.
"We anticipate that we may have a difficult contract negotiation," said Peter Peyton, a Local 63 representative. "But we've been in fights before."
