Dock labor talks continue (W est coast)

[Omaha Steve]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/368794_longshoremen28.html

Dock labor talks continue
West Coast longshore contract expires next week

P-I STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

With a six-year contract set to expire Tuesday, West Coast shippers and the dockworkers union continue to negotiate a new waterfront labor contract. Both sides insist that they want to keep ports running smoothly, even if they have to keep talking after the deadline.

The new contract will affect roughly 26,000 workers and billions of dollars in cargo. An agreement would be a break for the U.S. economy, and neither side wants a replay of the bitter, 10-day lockout in 2002 that caused an estimated $15 billion in economic losses.

"The hope is we can reach an agreement without the kind of disruption that we've seen in the past," said Steve Getzug, spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents 72 shipping companies.

Paul Bingham, an economist with the research firm Global Insight, said a prolonged labor disruption could prompt shippers to permanently reroute their goods through Canada, Mexico or the Panama Canal.

"They have to keep in mind that if they scare away some business, they might not get it back because there are more alternatives than there ever were before," Bingham said.

Bingham believes the talks could last through the summer but not much longer.

FULL story at link.

[pnorman]

1. Let those PMA corksuckers bargain in Good Faith for a change!

The last time (and the one before that) was about trivialization of the ILWU, if not destroying it altogether!

a note to those interested in such matters: The PMA is no longer almost exclusively American corporations. The shipowner companies are almost all foreign-flag, while ILWU consists of American waterfront workers.

pnorman