Workers Locked Out at Ports on West Coast

Cargo operations at seaports from San Diego to Seattle ground to a halt Friday when terminal operators locked out unionized dockworkers in a showdown that threatens to paralyze the nation’s leading gateway for waterborne trade.

The Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents shipping lines and terminal operators, called for a “defensive shutdown” of the West Coast’s 29 ports from 6 p.m. Friday to 8 a.m. Sunday in response to alleged union slowdowns that have disrupted movement of cargo intermittently during the last two weeks.

About $300 billion in cars, clothing, electronics and other goods annually move through West Coast ports. By one estimate, a protracted shutdown--whether by lockout or strike--could cost the U.S. economy $1 billion a day.

A top federal labor negotiator headed to San Francisco, headquarters of both the PMA and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, late Friday afternoon, seeking to defuse the escalating tension.

The Bush administration was closely monitoring the situation and remained “hopeful the two parties will come back to the table and continue negotiating in good faith,” said Sue Hensley, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department.

The PMA alleges that the ILWU is using work actions to inflict economic pain on the shipping companies to gain leverage in contract negotiations, which broke down this week.

The management group said it would reopen the ports if the union agreed to resume moving cargo normally while both sides tried to get back to the bargaining table.

“We will not tolerate the union’s calculated work actions, and have exhausted every option to keep peace on the waterfront,” PMA President Joseph Miniace said in a statement. “... They have engaged in a widespread job action that has brought the West Coast waterfront to its knees.”

The ILWU, which represents 10,500 dockworkers up and down the West Coast, called the PMA’s lockout “a tirade” born of frustration over stalled contract negotiations, which have produced little in four rancorous months.

The biggest hurdle is the PMA’s desire to implement labor-saving technology at the ports, which could cost union jobs.

The ILWU said snarled container traffic at major ports is not a union slowdown, but rather the result of heavy volume that has dockworkers scrambling to keep up in the midst of the peak shipping season for the upcoming holidays.

Although the management group has designated the lockout a “cooling-off” period, Friday’s action heightened concerns that it could provoke the union into a strike. ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone said the union is not considering a strike now. He said dockworkers would return when the PMA reopens the ports.

“The ball is in their court,” Stallone said. “We are ready to work.”

Although record levels of cargo are moving through West Coast ports, industry experts say, shipping lines and terminal operators have been struggling financially because of excess capacity that has forced the companies to lower their rates.

Average union wages last year, including overtime and premiums, were $80,000 for longshore workers and $158,000 for foremen, according to the PMA.

“We have no choice but to implement this defensive lockout,” said Chuck Raymond, president of CSX Lines, a major shipping company. Even a short lockout will be expensive, Raymond said, costing $800,000 a day in lost operating revenue.

The PMA said the union’s latest work slowdowns, which began Thursday night and escalated Friday, affected every major West Coast port.

Although the union denied a slowdown, the employers group cited a host of examples. At a terminal in Oakland, the PMA alleged that a crane operator who normally handles 30 containers an hour moved just three an hour Friday.

In the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, which handles 60% of cargo on the West Coast, the PMA said union workers refused to work extended shifts.

At the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the world’s third-busiest port complex, port officials and the U.S. Coast Guard were preparing a holding area to anchor ships unable to unload their cargo.

Capt. Richard McKenna, a spokesman for the Marine Exchange, which is responsible for managing vessel traffic at the port complex, said about 30 ships were due to arrive by Sunday morning. The ships will be asked to anchor in rows on a first-come, first-served basis.

A similar situation arose after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when 29 cargo ships were forced to anchor offshore for a few days.

“There is a certain level of excitement about the whole thing, but we feel we can handle it,” McKenna said.

At the Port of Los Angeles’ new Maersk terminal at Pier 400, there was a growing line of frustrated drivers waiting to pick up and unload their cargo Friday afternoon.

Many are independents who own their own rigs and are responsible for paying for fuel and maintenance. They work on commission, with short-haul drivers making about $150 a day for two or three shipments between Los Angeles-area rail yards and the harbor.

When terminal operators closed the gates at 2:30 p.m., horns blared and angry drivers spilled from the long line of rigs.

Local freight-hauler Francisco Lopez, 35, normally makes three trips a day to the ports. But Friday, he figured he would be lucky to complete one.

“I’m mad, and so is the whole world about this,” he said. “The company doesn’t pay us for waiting.”

Even a short delay can be devastating for a long-distance hauler trying to get goods across the country on a tight schedule.

“I came from Phoenix, and now I’m stuck with this load,” Texas-based trucker Arturo Cadillo said. “I’ll spend the weekend at a truck stop. I’ll be losing $700 a day.”

Robin Lainer, executive director of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition, which represents major retailers and manufacturers that depend on the ports, said some of her clients were suffering too.

Although a daylong shutdown at the ports might sound trivial, “it might be days before your box is dug out,” Lanier said. That’s a long time “if you’re a high-fashion retailer whose stock turns every six weeks or so.”

It was unclear late Friday just how badly the shutdown would affect the giant network of railroads that connect the ports to the rest of the nation.

Union Pacific Railroad said late Friday that it would stop accepting marine containers at all its West Coast terminal facilities at 6 p.m. today but would not elaborate as to why. Those facilities, whose employees are mostly members of a railroad union, are where the railroads transfer their containers onto trucks that serve the ports. Mike Furtney, a Union Pacific spokesman, could not say how long the ban would last.

But Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, which moves more intermodal traffic than any railroad in the world, will continue its operations, spokeswoman Lena Kent said. She said inbound cargo would be taken to the ports and stored until it could be offloaded.

Peter Hurtgen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, canceled a trip to San Antonio and boarded an airplane to San Francisco on Friday afternoon to try to find a resolution to the brewing crisis.

Jack Toner, Hurtgen’s chief of staff, said the two sides had not asked for federal intervention. He said Hurtgen was hoping to get the two sides talking, although the specific plan was a “work in progress.”

The mediation service needs the invitation of both parties to become officially involved in a labor negotiation, something Toner said he did not think had happened as of Friday afternoon.

“Any kind of work stoppage would be detrimental to our economy,” he said. “Our job is to try to stop that.”

Emotions were running high at the Port of Los Angeles on Friday evening, shortly after the lockout began. Angry union workers poured into the parking lot at Pier 400, drawn by a report that there was a nonunion person working at the giant Maersk terminal, in violation of union rules.

ILWU official Joe Donato later told the crowd that an unidentified Maersk superintendent had climbed into the crane to replace a hatch on a ship so it could sail.

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Times staff writers Nancy Cleeland, Abigail Goldman and Karen Robinson-Jacobs contributed to this report.