The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) says it is confident a new labour deal has been reached between with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) over a new five-year contract covering workers at all 29 west coast ports.
It said that the deal was reached with assistance from US Secretary of Labor, Tom Perez and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Deputy Director Scot Beckenbaugh, who were sent in by President Obama last week to speed up the resolution process.
PMA President James McKenna and ILWU President Bob McEllrath said in a joint statement: “After more than nine months of negotiations, we are pleased to have reached an agreement that is good for workers and for the industry. We are also pleased that our ports can now resume full operations.”
The parties said they will not be releasing details of the agreement at this time but any deal on the table still faces approval by the 13,000-member strong ILWU.
Even if an agreement is finally reached, the Port of Oakland said it will take between six and eight weeks for west coast ports to recover from the cargo backlog.
The Port of Long Beach welcomed the news and said it was looking forward to getting back to business immediately, but gave no indication how long it would take to clear its own backlog.
The two sides in the dispute have worked without a contract since last July, their impasse slowing containerised freight operations down to the point of gridlock more recently, losing the ports money and damaging the national economy.
