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PMA orders fewer quay gangs, more yard crane men, ILWU refuses

BECAUSE of docker slowdowns in Los Angeles and Long Beach, employers are ordering fewer gangs to unload ships and more to clear congested yards over objections from the union, which wants to provide the men management doesn't want, and not the ones they do - for reasons of "safety".

"To focus on clearing yards and get containers to their destinations, PMA [the employers' Pacific Maritime Association] is reducing the number to unload ships, thereby avoiding gridlock that the additional unloading creates," said PMA spokesman Wade Gates, reports American Shipper.

In the face of this, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) says the shortage of chassis is the real cause of congestion and not the insufficient number of yard crane operators only the union can provide.

Says management: "The average number of shifts for qualified [yard as opposed to quay] crane operators has dropped from 110 per day to 35, resulting in tens of thousands of containers available for discharge sitting on the docks."

Normally, such differences would be cleared within minutes or hours, because the contract calls for immediate arbitration of such disputes. But there has been no contract since July 1, and the union is free to sabotage operations, and has so far ignored management calls for federal mediation for which its agreement is needed.

Says the union: "They would be reducing the number of workers that would be called to unload in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. This will exacerbate backup of container vessels."

Says management: "They are only misdirecting the public away from the core issue that has taken a difficult situation and moved it to the brink, and that's their decision to withhold critically important skilled workers from the terminals."