No resolution yet in LA Long Beach port strike negotiations

DECEMBER 3, 2012 — Talks to end the six-day strike at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach intensified over the weekend, but with no resolution. In a statement issued yesterday, the employers said that the strike “is now expected to extend into a second week, leaving hundreds of thousands of people who support port operations without work and severely impacting the local and national economies.  The strike’s impact is widening and is already costing the national economy billions of dollars by many estimates.”

ILWU Local 63 Office Clerical Unit members began striking on Tuesday, November 27. Other unions have honored its picket lines and as of Friday, November 30, seven of eight container terminals at the Port of Los Angeles and three of six at the Port of Long Beach were closed.

This morning the LA Times reports Dick McKenna, executive director of the nonprofit Marine Exchange of Southern California, as saying that about a dozen containerships are sitting offshore, unable to unload or load cargo, with ten more scheduled to arrive today.

The newspaper reports that union spokesman Craig Merrilees says the union is prepared to keep negotiating. “We need the employers to stay at the table until the job is done,” he said. The union’s main concern has been losing jobs through attrition without new hires to replace them.