Catherwood LibraryILR School

A week after management at California?s Port of Hueneme declared an impasse in negotiations with eighteen employees represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 998 (see WIT for Aug. 21, 2002), two days of intensive bargaining have yielded a tentative contract settlement. The three-year contract proposal splits the difference between the seventeen percent raises sought by the union and the thirteen percent last offered by management last week, raising workers? salaries fifteen percent on average by 2005. The proposal decreases health benefits for current employees and retirees, but also provides for increased pensions, allows workers to accumulate more sick days that they can cash out when they retire, maintains current seniority provisions and workers? rights language, and adds Cesar Chavez? birthday as a paid holiday.