Port dispute at an end? ILWU says tentative agreement reached on new contract with PMA

A dis­pute between the Inter­na­tion­al Long­shore and Ware­house Union (ILWU) and the Pacif­ic Mar­itime Asso­ci­a­tion (PMA), a group of West Coast ter­mi­nal oper­a­tors, is at an end fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful nego­ti­a­tions on a new con­tract, the par­ties say.

“After more than nine months of nego­ti­a­tions, we are pleased to have reached an agree­ment that is good for work­ers and for the indus­try,” said PMA Pres­i­dent James McKen­na and ILWU Pres­i­dent Bob McEll­rath in a joint state­ment (PDF). “We are also pleased that our ports can now resume full operations.”

No details are being released at this time.

ILWU locals have already begun com­mu­ni­cat­ing the news to their members.

“Tonight, the ILWU and PMA reached a ten­ta­tive agree­ment on a Coast­wide Con­tract,” one local (Local 13, based in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia) announced on its web­site. “There will be more infor­ma­tion relayed to the mem­ber­ship by the Coast Com­mit­tee, Nego­ti­at­ing Com­mit­tee and your Local Offi­cers as soon as pos­si­ble in accor­dance with the Coast Long­shore Divi­sion By-Laws.”

The San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle quot­ed ILWU spokesman Craig Mer­rilees as say­ing, “The agree­ment was unan­i­mous­ly approved by the nego­ti­at­ing com­mit­tee — and they’d go to work tonight if they could.”

Elect­ed offi­cials hailed the announce­ment. Near­ly every state­ment we’ve received thus far begins by call­ing the set­tle­ment “great news”.

“This is great news for the par­ties involved in the nego­ti­a­tion and a huge relief for our econ­o­my – par­tic­u­lar­ly the count­less Amer­i­can work­ers, farm­ers, and busi­ness­es that have been affect­ed by the dis­pute and those fac­ing even greater dis­rup­tion and costs with fur­ther delays,” said White House Press Sec­re­tary Josh Earnest.

“Help­ing resolve this dis­pute has been a top pri­or­i­ty, and last week­end the Pres­i­dent direct­ed Labor Sec­re­tary Tom Perez to trav­el to Cal­i­for­nia to meet with the par­ties to help them reach a res­o­lu­tion because fur­ther delays would have been harm­ful to these work­ers and the economy.”

“The Pres­i­dent was kept updat­ed on the nego­ti­a­tions over the past sev­er­al weeks, includ­ing receiv­ing an update last night from Sec­re­tary Perez. The Pres­i­dent is grate­ful to Sec­re­tary Perez for his hard work bring­ing about a suc­cess­ful res­o­lu­tion to this dis­pute, and for the help of fed­er­al medi­a­tor Scot Beck­en­baugh.  And he calls on the par­ties to work togeth­er to clear out the back­logs and con­ges­tion in the West Coast Ports as they final­ize their agreement”

“This is great news for busi­ness­es and port work­ers all along the West Coast,” said Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee in a state­ment sent to NPI.

“I want to thank the ILWU and the PMA for find­ing an agree­ment in prin­ci­ple tonight to set­tle the dis­pute that was dam­ag­ing Wash­ing­ton’s econ­o­my. I also want to thank Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and Labor Sec­re­tary Perez for step­ping in and help­ing get the par­ties to reach an agree­ment. I expect we will soon see Wash­ing­ton’s ports once again play­ing their essen­tial role in our economy.”

Long Beach May­or Robert Gar­cia voiced sim­i­lar sentiments.

“Get­ting this deal done means our ports and our nation­al econ­o­my will start mov­ing again. This set­tle­ment is great news for our west coast ports, our local work­force, and busi­ness­es around the coun­try,” he said.

“I want to per­son­al­ly thank the Pres­i­dent and the Sec­re­tary of Labor for their effec­tive inter­ven­tion and lead­er­ship in help­ing the par­ties reach a res­o­lu­tion. I also want to thank my col­leagues, the port city may­ors, for their per­sis­tent engage­ment in this process, and the ship­pers and dock­work­ers for reach­ing this agreement.”

“Wash­ing­ton state’s ports play a crit­i­cal role in cre­at­ing jobs and grow­ing the local econ­o­my, so I am glad that this agree­ment in prin­ci­ple was reached tonight to keep work­ers on the job and pro­vide cer­tain­ty for fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es,” said Wash­ing­ton’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor, Pat­ty Mur­ray. “I appre­ci­ate the com­mit­ment of the ILWU and the PMA to stay at the table and keep work­ing until they reached an agree­ment, and I am very thank­ful to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and Sec­re­tary Perez for their work help­ing the two sides come togeth­er to get this done.”

Media reports sug­gest­ed that the final stick­ing point between the PMA and ILWU con­cerned pro­vi­sions in the con­tract relat­ed to arbi­tra­tion. Appar­ent­ly that ques­tion has been set­tled to the mutu­al sat­is­fac­tion of the ports and the union.

The agree­ment must be rat­i­fied by the ILWU’s mem­ber­ship as well as the PMA before it becomes final. The ILWU, found­ed in 1937, rep­re­sents over thir­ty-sev­en thou­sand work­ers in the Pacif­ic Coast states as well as British Colum­bia, Canada.

This post will be updat­ed with more reac­tion as we get it.