THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 3, 1996 TAG: 9610030383
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 93 lines
Port laborers in Hampton Roads approved contracts on Wednesday giving them $4 an hour in raises during the next five years, but keeping a lid on costs for shippers, union and management officials said.
The five-year deal is the longest ever negotiated by the International Longshoremen's Association.
ILA members voted all day Wednesday on two contracts. One, known as a master contract, set wages for handling containerized cargo. The master covers all ports from Texas to Maine.
It was approved 826-494 by the region's dockworkers, said Edward L. Brown, ILA vice president in Norfolk.
The master must be approved by a majority of the 30,000 ILA members coastwide and that's expected to happen. National figures weren't available Wednesday night.
The second contract, or local contract, governs wages for break-bulk cargo, some benefits and manning issues in Hampton Roads alone. It passed 782-534, Brown said.
``We are happy,'' Brown said. ``I've got a good team, we stayed together and the men supported our leadership.''
The contracts affect Hampton Roads' 2,000 ILA members and should keep the East Coast's second-largest port after New York on track to continued growth.
``We're happy about it,'' said Roger Giesinger, president and chief negotiator for the Hampton Roads Shipping Association, which represents the region's marine terminals, shipping lines and other employers of ILA labor.
The voting on the both contracts didn't go as well in other ports. ILA members in Baltimore approved the master contract, but rejected their particular local contract, Giesinger said.
The Boston ILA went on strike Wednesday night after rejecting the master contract.
Wednesday's vote comes on the heels of what Brown called a ``very intense union meeting'' Tuesday night at Scope where the leaders outlined the proposed contracts to the membership.
The meeting lasted more than three hours and some opposition was voiced, Brown said.
The elimination of the guaranteed annual income was somewhat controversial. That benefit guaranteed longshoremen an annual income of $35,000 even if there wasn't work for them.
Hardly used in the rapidly growing Hampton Roads port, the benefit was still widely regarded as a long-term safety net by eligible ILA members.
The program has been gradually phased out in recent years. Only about 560 of the ILA's 2,000 members in Hampton Roads are even eligible for it anymore. And because local work rules limited how workers could draw the guaranteed income, only about $10,000 was paid out to eligible longshoremen last year.
``The majority of the people who are on it have never gotten anything from it,'' Brown said.
Management will give those eligible workers $1 for every container ton they've handled in the year before Sept. 30 as a bonus to do away with the program. Each of the eligible workers will get about $12,000, Giesinger said.
The local contract includes a package of wage, benefit and gang sizes for break-bulk cargo handling that will make Hampton Roads competitive for that business again, Giesinger said.
In recent years, the port has lost a lot of break-bulk cargos such as rubber and cocoa that aren't shipped in standard shipping containers to ports using less expensive labor.
Giesinger didn't want to disclose too many details of the package, citing how competitive that market is.
Wages for break-bulk handling won't be any different than those for container handling, Brown said.
Indeed, the local agreement does away with an apprentice program set up to help make Hampton Roads more competitive while new dockworkers are trained. That program, initiated in April 1995, called for new ILA members to work as apprentices earning $15 an hour for their first three years in the union.
The apprentice program will be replaced by the new-member plan in the master contract, Brown said. That plan calls for ILA members hired after Oct. 1 to make $13 an hour.
Most break-bulk cargo will continue to be handled by lower-wage dockworkers, Brown said.
``We are not designating anybody to work break-bulk, we just know that the more senior people won't work break-bulk when there's less arduous work available,'' Brown said.
The local contract also increases the add-on pay for some skilled positions such as container crane operators. They will get an extra $1 an hour, up from 60 cents an hour.
Current ILA members earn $15, $20 or $21 an hour depending on when they joined the union. The master contract provides raises of $2 an hour the first year and $1 an hour in the third and fifth year.
The master contract gave the raises in exchange for a cost-saving reduction in container-handling gang size.
The ILA agreed to gradually reduce the 18-man container gang to 15 men.
The master contract also calls for the establishment of a managed health care program for ILA members and their dependents.
This proposal also created some concern as longshoremen worried about a reduction in benefits, Giesinger said. ``That's not what this is about,'' he said. ``It's about maintaining benefits while controlling costs.'' by CNB