Excerpts from the Long Beach Press Telegram:
The head of the longshore workers’ union on Thursday slammed a maritime association for portending a shutdown of West Coast ports, calling it “a reckless and unnecessary move.”
Robert McEllrath, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, especially criticized Pacific Maritime Association CEO Jim McKenna for what he called using bargaining tactics with the media and warping the facts of an imminent closure of ports along the West Coast, including the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s largest seaport complex handling 40 percent of U.S. imports.
“What the ILWU heard yesterday is a man who makes about $1 million a year telling the working class that we have more than our share,” McEllrath said in a statement Thursday. “Intensifying the rhetoric at this stage of bargaining, when we are just a few issues from reaching an agreement, is totally unnecessary and counterproductive.”
McEllrath said that both sides are “very close” to an agreement.