User-agent: Mediapartners-Google* Disallow: Trucks World News: TRUCKERS & PORTS DISPUTE * USA: Talks intensify to end they
Google
 
Loading

Jun 12, 2015

TRUCKERS & PORTS DISPUTE * USA: Talks intensify to end they

* California - West Coast ports still beset by labor problems, unrest
-- No doubt port shippers and haulers were wishing for summer to be a strife-free season but so far, that hasn’t been the case, at least at beleaguered West Coast ports... Just last week came work slowdowns at the Port of Oakland concerning what was reported to be “uncertainty surrounding the new labor agreement,” which insiders said meant the part of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s (ILWU) contract designating that it’s the union members’ job to maintain and repair chassis... Now there are reports of West Coast port truckers’ threat to strike over not being able to unionize. At the crux are owner-operators who work for Intermodal Bridge Transport, who are demanding that IBT recognize their right to form a union... According to the Teamsters, the port truckers aren’t independent contractors at all but rather employees, who have the right to unionize... Meanwhile, hoping to avoid the labor strife that plagued U.S. West Coast seaports in the past eight months, managers of East Coast and Gulf Coast ports have started talks aimed at a new contract with organized port workers more than three years before their agreement expires, the Wall Street Journal reported... A bill is before Congress that would amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to give state governors a mechanism under federal law to mitigate the impact of port labor disputes. It would allow governors to convene a board of inquiry and start the Taft Hartley process whenever a port labor dispute is causing economic harm... 
(Photo: California Port's trucks loading) Long Beach, CAL, USA - The Trucker - 9 June 2015


* California - Truckers need a voice in port controversy

-- After millions of dollars lost, strikes, stoppages and finger pointing between unions and shippers that put Los Angeles and Long Beach ports in the national spotlight, things finally looked to be returning to normal... But now longshoremen would inspect all outgoing trailers, with the exception of some truck drivers... One probable theory about why this was agreed upon is that the ILWU fought to put that provision... It is also a way, should there be another disagreement, for dockworkers to exercise their power and slow cargo coming in and out of port... The issue is highlighting the tensions among some truckers — many paid a fraction of what the longshoremen make — who have complained that longshoremen never did a great job in the first place fixing and maintaining chassis... There are about 100,000 chassis in Southern California. The IICL said the agreement is hurting leasing companies... Sound confusing? The rules are cumbersome and they need to be fixed... Before ILWU and the ocean carriers negotiated a labor agreement that impacted the trucking industry, they should have included the truckers... And in the end, it could slow down how quickly truckers leave the port, and thus hurt commerce... That’s no way for the biggest players at world-class ports to be treating their colleagues... 
(Photo by Robert Casillas / Daily Breeze: Containers stacked up at APM Terminals in Long Beach)  --  Los Angeles, CAL, USA - The Press Telegram - 10 June 2015

Labels:

posted by Unknown @ 1:07 PM 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home