More than 1,000 longshoremen walked off the job in the
New York City area Friday, disrupting operations at the East Coast’s busiest
port system. The cause of the unexpected work stoppage remains unclear.
The dockworkers, who are members of the International
Longshoremen’s Association, stopped working around 10 a.m. EST Friday,
according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The stoppage
reportedly affects each of the six New York City-area terminals, the
third-busiest port complex in the United States.
In response to the walkout, the Port Authority issued an
alert that said trucks would not “be allowed to queue on port roadways” and
urged shippers against sending “trucks to the port at this time.”
The two-state agency, which serves as landlord for the
ports among many other roles, later issued a statement urging strikers to go to
back to work.
“As the agency that oversees the largest port complex on
the East Coast, we strongly urge the ILA members to return to work immediately
and resolve their differences after they return,” it said. “In the meantime,
Port Authority police are actively working to ensure public safety for all of
the stakeholders at the port.”
The New York Shipping Association, which represents the
terminal operators and shippers and negotiates labor contracts with the union,
was apparently caught by surprise. A spokeswoman told Bloomberg that the
organization was “trying to understand the reason for what appears to be a
walkout and will take every measure available to ensure work resumes.”
The ILA did not immediately return a request for comment.
It appeared to be equally taken unawares by the work stoppage.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” union spokesman Jim
McNamara told Bloomberg. “It’s really a member-driven action.”
McNamara said the dispute centered around the Waterfront
Commission of New York Harbor, an agency that monitors criminal activity and
ensures fair hiring and employment practices at the ports.
“They say they’re concerned about their own
future jobs because a lot of their fellow members are being harassed by the
Waterfront Commission, being subjected to drug tests that aren’t part of the
agreement between the ILA and the New York Shipping Association,” McNamara said
in the interview with Bloomberg.
In a separate interview with a local radio station,
McNamara alluded to other issues.
“The ILA and the New York Shipping Association — our
employers, it’s not just the workers, but also the owners of the companies that
generate the jobs and generate money for the economy— both sides have been
fighting the Waterfront Commission, especially in the last five years, over the
right to bring new workers on, the right to operate their ports the way they
think they should be operated,” McNamara said. “They’ve had enough, they told
me they’re taking this action to demonstrate their displeasure.”
Jeff Bader, president of the Association of Bi-State
Motor Carriers, which represents port trucking companies, said the walkout had
effectively brought traffic at the terminals to a halt.
“Right now the entire economy of the port is shut down,”
Bader told the Wall Street Journal. “We’re pulling all our trucks in and we’re
heading home. We’ve missed hundreds and hundreds of exports. Containers are
sitting there unmoved. You’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands
of dollars this thing has cost us.”
In 2014 and 2015, labor disputes at West Coast ports
resulted in major delays, costing importers, exporters and other businesses
billions of dollars.
Source: International
Business Times
No comments:
Post a Comment