With its members now in their third week of working under day-by-day extensions of an expired contract (see WIT for June 27, 2002), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on Tuesday offered to accept the Pacific Maritime Association?s calls for new technology in return for increased union coverage of dockworkers (see WIT for May 13, 2002). Although the proposal eliminates approximately 630 job opportunities at current cargo levels, the ILWU expects that increased shipping volume will make temporary any decrease in the amount of work available to members---who are dispatched to jobs on a rotating basis. In return for the claimed $100 million annual savings in labor costs to the PMA, the union is demanding that any newly created jobs and several job categories that are currently contracted out be put under the union contract.
See NANCY CLEELAND, Los Angeles Times, July 17, 2002