WASHINGTON — The International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union told the Justice Department it can’t respond to reports by shippers about a work slowdown at West Coast ports because it hasn’t seen the shippers’ complaint, reports Dow Jones Newswires.
The Pacific Maritime Association didn’t forward the union a copy of an Oct. 18 letter to the DOJ complaining of the slowdown, wrote Richard Zuckerman, an attorney to the union in a letter to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Shannen Coffin. The union released Zuckerman’s Oct. 24 letter Friday.
“Please rest assured that the ILWU has taken affirmative and reasonable steps to secure compliance with the Taft-Hartley injunction” against strikes or slowdowns issued by a federal judge earlier this month, Zuckerman added.
Coffin wrote the union and the shippers on Tuesday asking both sides to provide him information about the matter by noon Friday. He said he wanted to give both sides an opportunity “substantiate their positions with regard to the allegations of slowdown” made by shippers’ attorney Charles O’Connor before seeking judicial relief.
In a Friday afternoon news conference, ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone said the union didn’t receive the port operators’ complaint until responding to the Justice Department’s request for information Thursday.
“Our attorneys are still reviewing the document,” he said. “But our response remains that the Justice Department and the court do not have jurisdiction on these issues” until a grievance process specified in the labor contract had been exhausted.
In a letter sent Friday afternoon to the union, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Coffin extended the union’s deadline for responding to noon PST Tuesday. But he added that the union’s assertion that the court lacks jurisdiction to cite the union for contempt if it determines there has been a work slowdown “is patently baseless.”
“The United States is not a party to that collective bargaining agreement, and is not bound by its terms,” Coffin wrote. “The United States therefore has the authority to bring, and the court jurisdiction to hear, a motion for contempt of the preliminary injunction regardless of whether the arbitration procedures of the collective bargaining agreement have been invoked or complied with.”
The port operators alleged that productivity decreased by up to 34% at West Coast ports following the issuance of a preliminary injunction by a federal judge on Oct. 8 stopping a 10-day lockout by the port operators in the labor dispute. The Justice Department had sought the injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act, saying the dispute was costing the economy $1 billion daily.
Stallone told reporters that the port operators are “more interested in making public relations points against the union than in trying to resolve the problems.” He said because of an “incredible backlog of cargo,” the ports are still clogged and inefficient.
Coffin wrote that while there may have been inefficiencies in the days immediately after the ports reopened, “we would expect that they have been sorted out by now, nearly three weeks after the entry of the temporary restraining order on Oct.8.”
“Because of the vast importance of the West Coast ports to our nation’s economic health, military readiness and national safety, we take seriously any allegations that those ports are not operating at an appropriate level of productivity,” Coffin concluded.
In a statement, the Pacific Maritime Association said it “engaged in discussions” with the union before approaching the Justice Department, and has used the contract’s grievance and arbitration process. But the port operators agreed with the Justice Department that those talks don’t preclude fines or a contempt finding by the court should it find violation of its injunction.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union told the Justice Department it can’t respond to reports by shippers about a work slowdown at West Coast ports because it hasn’t seen the shippers’ complaint.