A new six-year Master Contract, covering some 14,500 waterfront workers belonging to the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has been overwhelmingly approved in a ratification vote conducted at ports on the Atlantic and Gulf coast.
The ILA negotiated this new Master Contract with the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), an alliance of container carriers, direct employers, and port associations.
A new six-year Master Contract, covering some 14,500 waterfront workers belonging to the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has been overwhelmingly approved in a ratification vote conducted at ports on the Atlantic and Gulf coast.
The ILA negotiated this new Master Contract with the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), an alliance of container carriers, direct employers, and port associations.
The settlement ends more than a year of negotiations between employers and the ILA. The talks went on well beyond the original contract deadline of 30 September, agreeing a series of extensions to keep cargo moving and bargaining continuing rather than engage in a devastating strike or lock-out.
In the Master Contract, ILA members won handsome gains in the new six-year agreement, including wage increases totalling $3 an hour spread out over the life of the agreement that will, by the final year of the new contract, bring their hourly rate of pay to $35 an hour.
Lower-tiered workers will enjoy an even higher wage percentage increase, as their pay progression scale was shortened to six years from nine years in the new agreement. Thus, a new ILA member earning a base pay of $20 an hour will increase to $35 an hour by the end of the sixth year.
"On behalf of ILA members and officers at all ports, we’re thrilled this Master Contract was ratified by an overwhelming margin," said ILA President Harold J Daggett, who served as ILA Chief Negotiator at these negotiations for the first time since he was elected International President in July 2011.
"We all worked very hard, achieved landmark improvements and protected our members and our union for many years."
One major area of protection was contract language that strongly protects ILA workers who have been displaced due to new technology and automation.
In other areas related to job protection, the ILA successfully negotiated terms that will restrict the outsourcing or subcontracting of ILA jobs to non-ILA employers. Specifically, the ILA will preserve its chassis maintenance and repair jurisdiction and expand major damage criteria to protect even more jobs.
Along with the Master Contract, nearly all ILA local agreements on the Atlantic and Gulf coast also were ratified by ILA members, with the exception of the ports of Baltimore, Philadelphia and Hampton Roads. Those port areas were permitted to continue negotiating their local agreements and are expected to complete them early next week.
USMX members will vote to ratify the Master Contract on 17 April.
The contract settlement comes a year before the expected opening of the expanded Panama Canal where a surge in commerce at Atlantic and Gulf coast ports is expected.
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