Catherwood LibraryILR School

A federal court yesterday granted the president?s request to enforce an eighty-day cooling off period in the stalled negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), ordering the two sides to resume normal operation and ending a ten-day lockout. Although the union agreed to the thirty-day extension of the old contract requested by the White House and demanded by the PMA as a condition of ending the lockout, the possibility of a non-federally mandated solution was dashed when the PMA reversed course and refused to accept the union?s offer. Despite management?s hope that the court order will allow them to better enforce high productivity, the union has insisted that its members will continue their strict adherence to safety rules in the wake of a string of on the job waterfront deaths this year---setting the stage for more of what management has called slowdowns and the union has called caution.