Labor, Ports Agree to Extend Negotiation Deadline
The International Longshoremen's Association and East and Gulf coast port operators came to an agreement Dec. 28 to extend contract negotiations to Feb. 6, according to federal mediators.
The contract expiration has been further extended from Jan. 28 to account for the holidays when negotiations were not conducted. The contract was originally set to run out on Sept. 30. No new talks have been announced.
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service said the parties reached agreement on container royalty payments, saying that the “agreement on this important subject represents a major positive step toward achieving an overall collective bargaining agreement.”
Container royalty payments that are made to dockworkers have been an issue in the talks because management wants to cap those payments, which first were made during the 1960s when containerization was taking hold in ocean shipping. The payments have been escalating since and can be as much as 17% of a longshoreman's pay.
The agreement avoids the deadline for a work stoppage that “could have economically disruptive nationwide implications,” FMCS said.
The White House had urged dockworkers and shipping companies to reach agreement “as quickly as possible,” the Associated Press reported.
Contract negotiations initially stalled Dec. 20 between the longshoremen and port operators, and the union said it had started preparing a work stoppage.
