Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union voted by nearly 90% Wednesday to approve a new six-year contract with shipping lines and terminal operators,
ending a labor dispute that tied up 29 West Coast ports last fall until President Bush stepped in.
Union President Jim Spinosa said the final tally was 7,405 in favor of the contract and 888 against, or 89.3% to 10.7%. Voter turnout was 85%.
The agreement passed in every local on the coast. The 89.3% vote is the largest approval for any longshore contract in the history of the ILWU, according to Spinosa.
Members of the Pacific Maritime Assn. (PMA), which represents shipping companies and terminal operators, ratified the contract earlier. Representatives for the PMA could not be reached for comment.
Going into bargaining the union set three priorities: maintain its 100% employer paid health care benefits, increase pension rates and win jurisdiction over operating the new technology.
"The ILWU batted three for three on its main concerns," Spinosa said.
The contract guarantees the medical benefits for the next six years in a time when health care costs are rising dramatically and most other unions are being hit with cutbacks and increasing co-pays.
The 60% increase in pensions is the largest in the history of the American labor movement. And the contract gives the jurisdiction over the port computer technology -- the issue that ignited the employer lockout -- to the union.
"The contract says that the new work operating the new technology will not be outsourced to non-union workers," Spinosa said. "That work will be done by ILWU marine clerks."
Salaries would increase 12% by the end of the six-year contract.
In exchange, union members would accept a new wave of computer technology that would speed the flow of goods through already-congested ports.
Goods have been flowing across West Coast docks far swifter than as the holidays approached, when it took federal intervention to reopen 29 major Pacific ports shuttered by the labor battle between longshoremen and shipping companies.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, who sat in on the final six weeks of negotiations, praised the agreement.
"In a time when more working families than ever are struggling with rising health care costs and insecure retirements, the ILWU has won a historic contract which sets a much-needed benchmark in health care, pensions and living standards," Trumka said.
The new six-year contract is retroactive to Nov. 23 and runs through June 30, 2008. It covers all 10,500 ILWU longshore workers on the U.S. West Coast.