A strike over scope
 

Los Angeles Times

12:38 AM PST, December 5, 2012

Clerical workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will return to work Wednesday, ending a strike that crippled America's busiest shipping hub for more than a week.

Leaders of the 800-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 Office Clerical Unit agreed to a tentative deal after marathon negotiations that ended late Tuesday. The deal will not become final until it is ratified by the full union membership.

It ends a grueling battle between both sides that threatened to damage the fragile U.S. economy. Since the strike began, 20 ships diverted to rival ports in Oakland, Ensenada and Panama, while other freighters docked offshore waiting for a resolution.

"This was at a critical juncture," said Jack O'Connell, an international trade economist. "The national economy is still trying to get on its feet and this strike would have been decidedly unhelpful. There are enough head winds out there already."

The deal came after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called in two federal mediators Tuesday morning to try and break the impasse. That pushed the unions into a quicker deal, fearing a loss of influence and negotiating power once the mediators took over.

For Villaraigosa, a former union leader before going into politics, the tentative agreement was seen as a victory. "Mission accomplished. This has been a long eight days, but it's a great day for everybody now that a deal has been reached," Villaraigosa said in announcing a deal.

The strike began Nov. 27 as the clerical workers' union voiced frustration about shipping line employers outsourcing jobs, an accusation the Harbor Employers Assn. has denied.

Though the union is small, it was backed by the 10,000 regional members of the ILWU, which honored the picket line and refused to work. By the end, the strike shut down 10 of the 14 cargo container terminals at the nation's busiest seaport complex.

The port employers had been pushing for mediation since last week. Clerical workers agreed only after Villaraigosa intervened.

Both union and harbor employers spent most of Tuesday huddled inside a community center near the port.

The mediators joined Villaraigosa there at about 8:30 p.m. as negotiators for the union were voting behind closed doors.

"When unions are weak, they badly want mediators, and when they are strong, they sometimes don't," said Nelson Lichtenstein, who directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at UC Santa Barbara. "This was a sign that the union felt it was dealing from a position of strength."

The dispute wasn't about wages or benefits. It centered on the claim by the union that employers have steadily outsourced jobs through attrition.

The union says the employers have transferred work from higher-paid union members to lower-paid employees in other states and countries.

"Tonight is the end of a very long journey," said Steve Berry, lead negotiator for the Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbor Employers Assn.

Berry said there will be "no outsourcing under this contract."

Berry said the package included unspecified wage and pension increases. He also said there was added job security to the deal, that included a "no layoff" clause that would go into effect once ratified.

The contract will last for six years, and is retroactive to June 30, 2010. It will be set to expire on June 30, 2016.

Few other details of the agreement were revealed by either side or the mayor.

However, during the last few days, salary has been one major bargaining point.

The workers don't have ordinary clerk and secretarial jobs. They are logistics experts who process a massive flow of information on the content of ships' cargo containers and their destinations.

The clerical workers, among the highest-paid in the country, are responsible for booking cargo, filing customs documentation, and monitoring and tracking cargo movements.

According to union officials and the Harbor Employers Assn., the average hourly rate for clerical workers is $40.50 an hour — which amounts to about $84,000 a year. In comparison, the median annual wage for cargo and freight agents was $37,150 in May 2010, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As talks dragged on, employers offered to raise the union workers' total compensation package. The employers had said total compensation currently averages $165,000, but that amount includes healthcare, pension contributions, time off and other benefits in addition to salary.

One of the latest proposals made just before Tuesday's vote would have raised that average to $195,000 and include a $1-an-hour increase in pay each year for the next two years.

The union, however, pushed for a contract that would prevent employers from outsourcing jobs in the future, said Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the clerical workers' union.

Deal brings end to L.A., Long Beach ports strike - latimes.com

There was no reason to walk out over wages or benefits, they were being offered a compensation package, including retirement and insurance that was $195K/year, for clerks.

Yup. They struck over scope. They realized that a $195k benefit compensation package is not worth much if you don't have a job, and keeping more workers on the property improves everyone's life through seniority gains.

I suspect that this is a similar situation to when some talking head from IATA goes on msnbc and says that pilots make an average of $200,000 (insert ridiculous figure). I have heard these kinds of figures thrown around when someone brings up how low paid new pilots area and they're trying to paint a rosy picture for the general public. If they made it clear that a new jet pilot earns $20,000 the public would feel sympathy for them versus feeling like they're spoiled brats when you throw some ridiculously high average salary out there. I don't buy that the average clerical worker earns $195k a year. the $85,000 number is probably more on track.

Yup. One report said the average salary for the clerks is $40/hr. That works out to $83,200/yr.

I am happy for them, having balls! Too bad we live under the RLA, and cannot simply strike.

Some jobs pay more. I'd think "clerical" positions depend on the exact circumstances. If people have a problem with this, I'm sure they'd be happy to extend the same criteria for "overpaid bus drivers"...

Unfortunately, this situation doesn't even remotely apply to our TA. First of all, jobs have already been outsourced. This scope clause is FAR superior to the one we have at L-UAL. Sadly, we have dragged your scope at L-CAL down with us, so that is already gone. Second, we have no avenue to strike. And if you think the NMB will give us that authority, you should really start listening to what the people that actually TALK to the NMB are saying about how they view this TA

It applies in the fact that they are willing to strike for Scope. I guess we are not if we vote yes to this JCBA!

Yes you are correct that our jobs have been outsourced. So the question is, why do we UAL pilots have to compromise on our work rules to get closer to CAL's work rules but the Company didn't have to compromise and give us some scope that is somehwere in between CAL's (NO RJ's over 50 seats) and UAL's (some RJ's but limited to 70 seats)?

Instead we got more RJ's certificated to 90 seats but configured to 76 seats. I'd rather have our current scope that limits the 70 seats to the current L-UAL block hours!

You state that "Sadly, we have dragged your scope at L-CAL down with us, so that is already gone." That is only the case if the JCBA TA passes!

Yeah, I heard that same group protested years ago about using barcodes and scanners in their jobs.