AUT: Fw: wire service rpt on Longshore

["cwright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> West Coast Ports Sluggish, Managers Say
> Thu Oct 10, 9:27 PM ET
> By Dan Whitcomb
>
> LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The enormous backlog at U.S. West Coast ports
after
> a 10-day lockout was being cleared at a sluggish pace, port managers said
> on Thursday, but union officials insisted that they were doing the best
> they could with a "disaster" at the docks.
>
> Unhappy longshoremen returned to their jobs for a first time since Sept.
29
> after President Bush (news - web sites) intervened to end the lockout by
> invoking the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to put the ports back in action.
>
> "Certainly the activity is sluggish," said Steve Sugerman, a spokesman for
> the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents port employers. "We are
> not anywhere near the production levels we saw before the closures took
> place."
>
> Sugerman said PMA officials would monitor work at the docks "ship by ship"
> to make sure that longshoremen weren't engaging in an organized slowdown,
> but management agreed that part of the problem was the level of congestion
> at berths.
>
> A PMA source, meanwhile, said that officials were frustrated because
> dockworkers had been as much as 90 minutes late to work and in some cases
> jobs had gone unfilled.
>
> But International Longshore and Warehouse Union officials say they were
> hampered by conditions at the docks.
>
> "First of all, the PMA is ordering more people than we have available,"
> ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone said. "At this point every terminal needs a
> full complement of workers and that's quite an unusual situation. It never
> happens."
>
> "No, they're not working as fast as they can go," he said. "It's way
> dangerous out there. The docks were congested. Right now the docks are a
> total disaster."
>
> TRUCKS SENT AWAY EMPTY
>
> He said paperwork was so badly messed up at some terminals that truck
> drivers who had waited hours were in some cases sent away with no cargo
and
> that rail yards were unable to accommodate the number of containers that
> could otherwise be shipped. At least one shipper, Stallone said, had begun
> charging a $1,000 "congestion fee" to retailers.
>
> "The point here is that you know they are going to pass that along" to
> consumers, he said, adding, "So who's paying for the lockout now?"
>
> Stallone added that union officials took no blame for the ramifications of
> the work stoppage on the American economy.
>
> "It's not our responsibility," he said. "What we have responsibility for
is
> doing our job, is making sure we don't get killed. The damage to the
> economy is fully and solely the PMA's responsibility."
>
> The PMA had locked out 10,500 ILWU dockworkers at 29 West Coast ports from
> San Diego to Seattle, accusing them of an illegal slowdown that cut
> productivity in half. Union officials denied it.
>
> Sugerman said the backlog has snarled roads in and around ports, causing
> more delays. At the Hanjin terminal at the port of Long Beach, he said,
> trucks were lined up for over a mile by noon. The combined ports at Los
> Angeles and Long Beach are the nation's busiest.
>
> The West Coast port lockout, the most disruptive port dispute to hit the
> region since the 1970s, was estimated to cost the U.S. economy up to $2
> billion per day as mountains of cargo sat stranded on the docks and ships.
>
> That toll was already being felt across America, as firms predicted lower
> earnings based on port closures.
>
> RETAILERS, AUTOMAKERS SUFFER
>
> Gap Inc. (GPS.N) said its fourth-quarter earnings could be as much as 50
> percent below estimates because merchandise would be arriving weeks late
> during the crucial holiday shopping season. And Payless Shoes Inc. (PSS.N)
> cut its third-quarter profit outlook, citing fallout from the labor
dispute.
>
> Analysts said clothing retailers like Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF.N)
> and Limited Brands Inc. (LTD.N) were expected to suffer because they
import
> heavily through the West Coast.
>
> Car manufacturers have also been hit hard, with Honda Motor Co Ltd
(7267.T)
> halting production on Thursday at an Ohio, plant that makes Civic sedans
> and coupes. Honda expected to stop making Odyssey minivans at an Alabama
> plant on Friday.
>
> Toyota Motor Corp. (news - web sites) (7203.T) said the lockout, which
> caused the Japanese automaker to temporarily suspend some car and truck
> production due to parts shortages, could hurt its sales results for
October
> by 10 percent to 15 percent.
>
> A small number of union protesters gathered outside the PMA headquarters
in
> San Francisco, chanting and holding signs condemning federal intervention.
> The protest, which was described as a "lockout" of association
> headquarters, resulted in a few arrests and briefly prevented association
> employees from entering the building.
>
> "It's clear that the (Pacific Maritime Association) is using new
technology
> jobs as an opportunity to hire nonunion employees and bust the union,"
said
> Karen Pickett of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment,
one
> of the groups involved in the protest.
>
> Sugerman said managers were eager to resume bargaining, but the union had
> rejected a fair offer. "We led with an offer on Sunday night that we
> thought could bring this to a conclusion, but clearly we were mistaken,"
he
> said.
>
> "The sticking point is that the union is looking for other people's jobs,"
> he said. "They are looking for jobs that are held by other people across
> the country and in some cases held by other unions. These are jobs that an
> arbitrator has ruled in the past are outside their jurisdiction."
>
> Negotiations between the two sides have broken off, but may restart during
> the cooling off period, and the lockout could resume if they emerge from
> the 80-day hiatus without a firm contract agreement.
>
>
>
> *   Rust Gilbert -- (v) 773 404 0176 -- (f) 773 326 0726   *
>
>
>
>
>




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