The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced on Feb. 20 that they have reached tentative agreement on a new five-year contract covering workers at all 29 West Coast ports. Details of the agreement were not released, and it remains subject to ratification by both parties.
“After more than nine months of negotiations, we are pleased to have reached an agreement that is good for workers and for the industry,” said PMA President James McKenna and ILWU President Bob McEllrath in a joint statement. “We are also pleased that our ports can now resume full operations.”
PMA, which represents shipping lines and terminal operators, has enforced partial lockouts against ILWU members that effectively suspended vessel loading and unloading operations at West Coast ports for six days in mid-February. PMA said the lockouts were a response to months of union-coordinated work slowdowns at the ports.
The deal was reached with assistance from U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Deputy Director Scot Beckenbaugh. The two sides had been at an impasse over arbitration terms, which determines how to adjudicate disputes that occur day to day at the ports.
Although full operations are now resuming, industry sources say it will take months to clear the logistics bottleneck that has delayed container cargo traffic through the port system.