West Coast Ports, Dockworkers Reach Tentative Deal

Transcript

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

There’s word of a tentative agreement that’s been reached between shipping lines and the union that represents 20,000 dock workers at 29 ports up and down the west coast. The labor dispute has led to several shutdowns of port operations in recent weeks, and it’s helping cause an unprecedented amount of congestion at some of the country’s busiest ports with many businesses reporting millions of dollars in losses. NPR’s Kirk Siegler has been covering this story, and he joins us now from NPR West. Kirk, welcome.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.

MCEVERS: What are some of the latest - you know, the final sticking points in this deal.

SIEGLER: Well, it’s interesting. You know, as we’ve been reporting over the past couple of weeks, someof the bigger ticket items appear to have already been agreed on, in fact, some months ago, like wages and benefits. And we thought there was going to be a deal a couple of weeks ago when one of the last big things, a dispute over maintenance contracts, was apparently ironed out.

But this week the high drama seemed to be over something somewhat minor, at least if you talk to a lot of politicians - governors up and down the west coast and western states and the California senators. They were saying get this done, and that was all over a simple issue - or they called it a simple issue of arbitration. And so there was a lot of - and that is who has the power to hire and fire - an arbitrator - during separate, smaller disputes. So there’s a lot of pressure to get this done, and this one seemed to have come down to the wire this evening.

MCEVERS: In the past few weeks, the news has been focused on all of these huge container ships that are anchored off the coast at ports like LA and Seattle. What is this tentative deal going to mean for easing some of that congestion and getting things moving?

SIEGLER: Well, I think there will be a little bit more certainty for sure. This is a big step because we’ll know at least for now that there won’t be any more work stoppages and shutdowns. Just this week, the Port of Oakland shut down for a day. This past weekend almost all operations were shut down. At last check - I just spoke to a spokesman with the Port of Long Beach - there are 21 large containers just sitting out - or large container ships, rather, just sitting out waiting to get into the ports. And this labor dispute was really just one of the factors behind what’s being called a congestion crisis at the ports. It’s going to take weeks, maybe months to clear up. Some ports like here, in Los Angeles, are reported to be a hundred percent full.

And you have to remember that all of this congestion crisis, as it’s being billed, was brewing a lot - was brewing long before this labor dispute. You have bigger, megaships coming in to ports on the west coast as they’re trying to be more competitive with the widening of the Panama Canal. And so you have a lot more cargo coming in, and you also have some logistical changes that have happened in the recent - few recent months that have been placed - put in place by the shipping industry that has led to a few changes, and they’re ironing all that out.

But it’s safe to say that with this tentative deal reportedly in place, things are going to start moving again, and that backlog is going to start to get cleared.

MCEVERS: All right. That’s NPR’s Kirk Siegler reporting on the tentative labor contract deal that was reached between shipping companies and the union that represents 20,000 dock workers. Kirk, thank you so much.

SIEGLER: Glad to be here, Kelly. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.