Updates have been bumped to the top of this post.

Update: July 29th: Is it over? Can we get the ports back to normal now? Apparently a tentative deal has been reached! This is good news for shippers:

Negotiators for 25,000 West Coast longshore workers and the shipping companies that employ them reached a tentative agreement Monday evening on a six-year contract to replace the pact that expired July 1, both sides said in a statement.

Details were not disclosed, as both sides want to first brief their members. The agreement is subject to ratification by members of the union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and the employers’ negotiating group, the Pacific Maritime Association.

The employers’ group and the union agreed Monday to extend terms of the expired contract until the ratification votes take place and resume normal operations at the 29 ports covered in the bargaining in California, Oregon and Washington.

Via the PMA Press Release:

ILWU President Bob McEllrath and PMA President Jim McKenna said the proposed agreement meets the needs of both workers and the industry. It allows West Coast ports to be competitive and provides the good jobs that workers and communities need.

The parties have agreed not to discuss details of the agreement until the ILWU and PMA leadership teams have communicated with their respective membership.

Update: July 25th: The Associated Press now has a story out on the union’s job actions at the port. As reported in the SF Chronicle today:

West Coast shippers said Thursday that dockworkers at three California ports are intentionally slowing cargo movement and causing shipping delays as the two sides continue to negotiate a new contract.

For nearly two weeks, workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have been taking coordinated breaks and working slower, causing productivity to drop and forcing terminal operators to request more crews to help move goods, said Kevin Elliott, a spokesman for Pacific Maritime Association, which represents 71 shipping companies and terminal operators.

He said a few vessels have sailed away from the twin ports without all the necessary containers in order to stay on schedule.

Workers at the port of Oakland began taking similar job actions since Sunday, Elliott said.

The ILWU certainly isn’t doing themselves any favors with these kinds of ill-advised remarks:

“It’s no surprise that everyone is frustrated and running low on patience,” union spokesman Craig Merrilees said. “Perhaps we are drinking a little more coffee than before. But what’s important is the ports are opened and things are moving.”

Emphasis ours. Could you possibly be less tactful? “Perhaps we are drinking a little more coffee than before”? So the whole world revolves around you, does it - everything should shut down, truckers should sit idling, excess fumes spewing into the air, customers not getting their containers, just so you can “drink a little more coffee” compared to before? It’s like they intentionally want to turn public sentiment and shippers against them. Smooth move.

Here’s more from the PMA’s official press release:

Rather than heed the call to resume normal productivity levels in the ports, however, the Union leaders are expanding their actions against the ports to the Bay Area. Productivity levels in Oakland are off this week at an average of over 15% with falloff in some terminals over the last four days of as much as 40%. There is growing frustration that the ILWU is engaging in these deliberate job actions undermining productivity and the contract negotiations. Despite the slowdown tactics, the PMA has exercised extraordinary patience and continues to negotiate in good faith hoping to avoid disruption at the ports.

Over the last two weeks, more than a third of the vessels in southern California have had productivity drops of over 20%. More than one in ten have had productivity fall over 30%. This has resulted in disruption of schedules, with some vessels forced to sail leaving cargo and empty containers on the docks in order to maintain schedules.

This coordinated action over the last two weeks has led to increasing congestion on the docks which will compound the effects of the slowdown. Terminal operators have been forced to hire additional labor in an effort to try to offset the slowdown as much as possible, incurring substantial additional costs, and in effect subsidizing the disruptive activities. Ships have also been forced to burn more fuel and incur the higher costs associated with that to make up time lost as a result of the lower productivity in the ports.

All emphasis ours.

Update: July 24th: The work slowdowns in LA/Long Beach have started to migrate northwards to Oakland and Seattle/Tacoma. Here’s an article from Shipping Digest. Needless to say, the PMA is not pleased:

The cumulative impact of the unit breaks has been to reduce cargo-handling productivity by about 10 to 15 percent at each facility that is affected, according to the PMA. The union has been engaging in rolling job actions, Elliott said. Several facilities will be affected one day but will return to normal while other terminals are hit the next day.

The PMA’s recent figures indicate that the intensity of the unit breaks has increased, and in at least one case, a terminal’s productivity was reduced by 40 percent, Elliott said.

Equally disconcerting, recent numbers show that productivity in Oakland and in Seattle-Tacoma is starting to be affected as the job actions have spread north, he added.

The ILWU does not deny that job actions are occurring on the docks. “The folks are still drinking coffee – together,” said ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees.

Merrilees indicated that the impact on cargo-handling may not be as great as the PMA has stated. “There might be more passion than substance to what they’re saying,” he said.

I’ve talked to some truckers in Oakland who have confirmed the reports I’ve been reading. The previous two weeks it was mostly business as usual with the occasional terminal or day with a slowdown. But it’s now a coordinated effort and is greatly affecting the weighting time of the trucks in and out of the port. So far containers are still moving, but the vessels are being delayed down in LA/Long Beach which means they are already late coming to Oakland and then they are further delayed by similar actions.

Still, both sides seem confident that a deal can be reached and are continuing to negotiate. It is unfortunate that the ILWU can not reign in these actions while negotiations continue.

Update: July 21st: Latest news comes from Shipping Digest, where they report that the PMA is taking on a stronger tone in response to the continued sporadic labor slowdowns in LA/Long Beach:

“We’re now 21 days without a contract on the West Coast waterfront, and 11 days into continuing job actions by the ILWU that, from a cumulative impact, are gumming up the works at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports,” Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the PMA, said in an e-mail Monday morning.

“While productivity falloffs hover around 15 percent overall, there are fluctuations vessel to vessel and terminal to terminal. On Friday, one ship saw a 40 percent falloff in servicing, while three others saw falloffs of about 30 percent.

“We’re seeing congestion building, and increasingly empties and export containers are not making it onto ships. Our concern is that history is repeating itself,” Getzug said, referring to a union slowdown in 2002 that prompted employers to lock down the ports for 10 days. The lockout ended after President Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, ordering the union back to work. It took months to clear the backlog.

The article points out that the ILWU is staying optimistic, yet all is not rosy in the world of union labor - there’s apparently little love between the ILWU and the IAM (International Association of Machinists), who handle maintenance jobs at the ports:

The IAM accused the ILWU of using the contract talks to “raid” machinist union jobs. The IAM represents about 700 machinists working at West Coast port terminals.

Don Crosatto, an organizer and business representative for the IAM, said the ILWU has asked the PMA “that all mechanical and maintenance jobs at the ports be reserved exclusively for ILWU members. In return, they are offering to give the employers a better mediation and grievance process the PMA has been seeking.”

Crosatto said that if the proposal is accepted by the PMA, “There will be a fiesta of litigation — a whole cornucopia of litigation — and maybe a walkout.”

Friction between the ILWU and the IAM has existed for years. During the 2002 West Coast longshore negotiations, the ILWU also sought to secure all the machinist jobs for its members, and the IAM complained publicly.

Update: July 17th: Here’s more on the latest labor slowdowns at the ports of LA/Long Beach from Logistics Management. The ILWU is classifying the actions by their union members there as a “wildcat” action:

In a message to its members, ILWU leaders admitted to disruptions and asked for cooler heads to prevail:

“When contracts expire, some people are tempted to take matters into their own hands,” the ILWU told its members. “Let’s respect the Negotiating Committee strategy and our elected union officials by discouraging talk about ‘wildcats.’ We’re stronger when we stick together!”

A “wildcat” strike is an action taken by workers without union permission.

It’s certainly encouraging to hear this from the ILWU’s side; the PMA’s press release from yesterday and further reports from other media outlets was making me nervous. However it’s also disconcerting that the ILWU claims that these actions are being conducted without their authorization - I don’t know what’s more troubling about that claim, the fact that perhaps the ILWU doesn’t have that level of control over their own members or the idea that the ILWU is privately encouraging the action while publicly denouncing it.

Update: July 16th: Uh oh. I’m trying to be optimistic, but press releases like this are making it difficult to stay positive:

Overall, productivity at the port complex was down 20 to 30 percent during the day shift on Tuesday, according to the PMA, who whose 71 member companies include cargo carriers, terminal operators and stevedores on the West Coast.

First detected during the day shift on Tuesday, the new work actions are occurring on top of coordinated mid-shift unit breaks that began Friday and continue to hamper operations at the nation’s busiest ports. Essentially a series of small steps – such as tractor drivers operating their vehicles more slowly than normal, or brief delays being made during routine actions such as placing containers on trucks – the cumulative impact of these actions is to slow operations incrementally, but significantly. As time goes on, the impacts threaten to become even greater. These concerted job actions are occurring while the ILWU and PMA attempt to negotiate a new labor contract.

Because the previous waterfront contract expired July 1 and the union refused to extend it as current negotiations continue, there are currently no means to arbitrate these matters or enforce against disruptive tactics, including coordinated work slowdowns.

Folks, it’s stunts like this that led to the infamous employer lock-out/West Coast port shutdown of 2002 that crippled the import supply chain and took weeks to get back to normal. Thanks to the increased volumes handled by West Coast ports the impact would be far worse, should such a situation occur.

Again, I’m trying to stay optimistic, but reports of such actions are making me nervous. My advice would be don’t hit the panic-button but you better have some contingency plans in place in case something does happen.

Update: July 15th: Various media outlets are now reporting on the ILWU’s “unit breaks” taking place in LA/Long Beach. Here’s a report from KNBC in Los Angeles:

“Any actions that are being taken unilaterally by the ILWU are troubling to us at a very sensitive stage of our negotiations,” Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the PMA, a consortium of 71 shipping companies operating on the West Coast, told the Breeze.

“Our focus remains on resolving the remaining issues in front of us,” Getzug said. “We intend to reach an agreement that is fair and reasonable for both sides and keep the ports running smoothly and safely.”

For now, the simultaneous unit breaks have taken place only at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where more than 20,000 ILWU members work, according to the Breeze.

“Taking a coffee break together is not a crime,” ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees told the newspaper.

Update: July 12th: Despite plenty of media immediately following the contract expiration, there has been very little media attention given to the ongoing contract talks and aside from the occasional press release from both sides of the table they’ve been rather quiet as negotiations continue.

There have been a couple of minor incidents, based on these press releases from the PMA. The first is the concern that union members in LA/Long Beach are now taking “unit breaks” where workers all take their breaks at the same time instead of staggered to allow continuing operations. From the PMA press release:

Under our labor contract and longstanding practice, unit breaks are permissible only if the employers request it. That is not the case today. It is also worth noting that this action has been found to be an illegal work stoppage in the past, according to arbitration awards. As there is no contract currently in place, there is no means to arbitrate this matter.

In another press release just released today, the PMA also expressed their concern at the Union walkoff at the Port of Tacoma on Friday and reiterated their concern over the unit breaks at LA/Long Beach:

These unilateral actions by the ILWU are of heightening concern to us because they are occurring and escalating at a sensitive time during negotiations on a new West Coast waterfront labor agreement.

At the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, workers continue to deviate from standard practices that allow for continuous operations by taking mid-shift breaks together, rather than on a staggered basis, as had been the case until yesterday. As a result, cargo activity is brought to a temporary halt during these periods. Although the time periods are brief, their cumulative impact can be measurable: productivity has fallen at some terminals by 10 percent to 15 percent.

These are minor events, to be sure, but certainly troubling concerning where the PMA and ILWU are in negotiations. Whether this is standard protocol for the union during this period of negotiations, or a hint of worst things to come, we simply don’t know. At this time we’re hoping for the best as talks continue and both sides seek an agreement. As we learn more we’ll certainly share with you.

Update: July 7th: Negotiations continue today as port labor continues working despite the contract expiring last week on July 1st. As mentioned above, the ILWU refused to agree on a contract extension while talks continued, but as this article points out that’s par for the course as the ILWU didn’t agree to contract extensions in the past during negotiations either:

The ILWU refused to allow for contract extensions when previous labor pacts lapsed in 2002, 1999 and in 1996.

In the same article the PMA expresses some concern that work slowdowns might occur as they have in the past pending a contract agreement. However, the ILWU has communicated to their members to continue working as normal while talks continue between both sides.

Update - July 2, 2008:
Via dailybreeze.com, while the contract has expired everyone is still working and talks will continue:

“Negotiating is ongoing and we remain committed to talking past the deadline to reach an agreement that is fair and reasonable to both sides, while at the same time keeping the ports running smoothly,” said Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the PMA, a consortium of 71 West Coast shipping companies.

Both sides still hope to avoid a repeat of the bitter 2002 labor dispute that eventually led to a 10-day lockout and shutdown of the ports that ended only when President Bush intervened.

The ILWU had no immediate plans to call for a strike authorization vote this time around, even though the union’s six-year contract with the PMA expired at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

“The dockers are going to keep working at the ports, the companies will keep paying everybody and the negotiating team is going to keep working at the bargaining table on a fair agreement,” said ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees.

Positive words from both sides of the bargaining table, so things look good. The PMA had this to add via their official press release:

The six-year West Coast waterfront labor agreement expired Tuesday, but negotiations between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) on a new contract will continue beyond the deadline.

While the ILWU has stated that work will continue as normal as we negotiate, we regret that it did not agree to a formal extension of the contract and its no strike clause and arbitration procedures for resolving workplace disputes, including the tactic of slowdowns. An extension would have sent a much stronger message to the shippers and the public that the West Coast Ports will continue to operate without disruption.

Original Post: The contract is set to expire today at 5pm. As many of our readers already know, the PMA, representing employers, and the ILWU, the union that represents West Coast Port Workers, agreed to begin negotiations earlier than normal and have stressed their commitment to come to an agreement and avoid any possible labor disruptions similar to what happened back in 2002. As of right now a new contract has not been agreed to, but so far both sides have publicly expressed their commitment to continue negotiations and come to an agreement. From the PMA’s official release today:

Both PMA and ILWU have previously stated their commitment to resolving outstanding issues at the table and to keeping West Coast Ports running smoothly. We affirm that commitment, and we are prepared, if necessary, to continue talking after the current six-year labor contract expires at 5 p.m. PST today.

Keeping the ports open, productive and secure are critical to the American economy. The West Coast ports generate almost $1.3 trillion in domestic business impacts – representing 11 percent of total U.S. gross domestic product – and support more than 8 million direct and indirect U.S. jobs.

From an article in the Long Beach Press Telegram yesterday:

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, whose members handle most operations at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, said it had no plans to call for a strike at the 29 ports covered under the contract if a deal isn’t made this week.

“The whole tone of the talks has been constructive and positive,” said ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees. “We don’t anticipate there being any disruptions.”

While it’s been quite difficult to gather any details or news concerning the talks, what little has come out publicly over the past few months has been almost completely positive, with both sides expressing their commitment to avoid disruptions. When it comes to organized labor and contract negotiations I try not to make predictions but so far things are looking very positive and I think we may avoid any trouble this time around.

We’ll keep our readers updated as soon as we hear more.

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