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Following round-the-clock negotiations on Thursday mediated by three officials from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association reached tentative compromise on the key issue of technology implementation early Friday morning. It was a deadlock over this issue that led to a ten-day West Coast-wide lockout by the management group over alleged union slowdowns (see WIT for Sep. 30, 2002)---resulting in an eighty-day federal court back-to-work order sought by the president under the Taft-Hartley Act (see WIT’s for Oct. 7, and Oct. 9, 2002). Although wage and pension issues remain to be settled, Friday’s agreement removes the main roadblock to settling a new contract for the 10,500 dockworkers who operate West Coast docks that handle half of the country’s oceangoing trade.