California Port Gridlock: Labor Disputes May End Up Costing Billions

By Alex Lubben - In These Times, November 14, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

West Coast ports are stuck in gridlock. Earlier this week, truck drivers were waiting for as long as seven hours at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to try to retrieve single containers of cargo. The backup at these ports, which handle the majority of shipments from Asia, is threatening the timely delivery of billions of dollars’ worth of holiday goods.

The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents the docking companies at ports along the West Coast, blamed the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) for the initial slowdown, accusing the union of refusing to dispatch skilled workers at the ports, creating backups that are part of an attempt to gain leverage in contract negotiations. The union—whose workers have been without a contract since July—has denied that they are intentionally clogging the port’s flow of goods.

The “orchestrated job actions,” as PMA refers to the alleged slowdown, began at ports in the Pacific Northwest and has since spread to the Los Angeles-Long Beach (LA-LB) ports. PMA claims that the ILWU informed them that they would stop dispatching qualified workers.

ILWU denied this in a press release issued on November 10:

Obscuring months of data regarding the non-labor related causes of the current crisis-level congestion problem, PMA’s Texas-based public relations firm announced that the ILWU was the cause bringing “the port complex to the brink of gridlock.” The public relations firm also propagandized about the ILWU, its leadership, and false claims of safety issues.

They contended that the delays are due instead to an exodus of truck drivers from their industry because trucking companies refuse to pay a living wage, record retail import volumes and larger vessels discharging enormous amounts of cargo. That concern was echoed by truck drivers, who walked off the job earlier this week as well. They’ve struck multiple times this year, complaining of what they say is improper classification as independent contractors and low wages. While it isn’t yet clear whether the drivers’ strike is significantly impacting the flow of goods from the port, if longshore workers choose to join the truckers, the ports would likely be thrown into total chaos.

A coalition of retailers, wholesalers, farmers and manufactures from the National Retail Federation (NRF) issued a letter to President Obama asking for federal mediation in the longshore workers’ contract negotiations. Even before the truckers’ strike, the coalition feared the consequences of the worker unrest:

The threat of a West Coast port shutdown is creating high levels of uncertainty in a fragile economic climate which has forced many businesses to once again undertake contingency plans that come at a significant cost to jobs and our economic competitiveness.

A report by the NRF estimates that a total stoppage could cost the economy as much as $2 billion a day.