Bush Intervening in Port Lockout
 | West Coast Port Shutdown |
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Bush will form a board of inquiry under the Taft-Hartley Act, a possible first step in ordering workers from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union back to work, the Associated Press said.
The board will assess the economic damage being done by the Pacific Maritime Association's lockout of ILWU workers and determine if the two sides are negotiating in good faith, AP said.
Bush said he was forming the board just hours after talks broke down late Sunday night.
The sides walked away from the table about 11:30 p.m. Sunday after four days of talks failed to produce a settlement. A spokesman for the PMA told AP that the talks had broken off indefinitely.
Administration officials had said that they saw signs of progress over the weekend.
The board will make a determination on the critical issues of impact and negotiating bias in a few days, AP reported.
If and when a settlement does come, a report in the Wall Street Journal said that railroad and trucking companies are making preparations for hauling the mounting backlog of shipments now stalled at the PMA’s 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle.
More than 200 ships are currently waiting for the lockout to end at various ports along the coast, with about 14 new vessels arriving each day, the paper reported.
Published estimates but the possible damage to the U.S. economy as a result of the lockout at between $1 billion and $2 billion a day.
