Excerpts from an article titled “Latest Long Beach terminal automation draws ILWU backlash” in the Journal of Commerce:
Total Terminals International’s (TTI’s) decision this week to automate its 385-acre Pier T terminal in Long Beach sets up a classic struggle between terminal operator employers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).
“As the Long Beach Harbor Commission, the mayor of Long Beach, and the executive director of the Port of Long Beach consider TTI’s request, we ask that it carefully weigh the impacts that continued automation would have on American jobs and our local communities,” Danny Miranda, president of ILWU Local 94, said in a statement Wednesday.
As required by the coastwide contract when an individual employer decides to automate, TTI met Monday with leaders of the three ILWU locals in Southern California to lay out the details of its automation plan. The locals will now provide their input, observations, and suggestions on the plans, but according to the terms of the coastwide contract that was signed in 2008, the ILWU cannot block the project, McKenna told JOC.com Wednesday.
However, the coastwide contract calls for an exchange in which both parties have certain obligations they must meet to make a path forward for automation, said Frank Ponce De Leon, ILWU coast committeeman.
“Absent adherence to that quid pro quo, there is no outright, one-way grant of automation to the employers,” Ponce De Leon told JOC.com.