The Pacific Maritime Association and ILWU Local 26 have agreed to extend the negotiating deadline for a new union contract until 11:59 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, the PMA has announced, delaying a potential strike at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for at least another day.<\/p>\n
\u201cNegotiations will continue on Friday with the help of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service,\u201d a PMA statement said. \u201cLocal 26 represents about 250 watchmen, roughly 2% of the ILWU workforce at the ports.<\/p>\n
\u201cPMA,\u201d the statement added, \u201cremains committed to reaching a fair agreement at the bargaining table that avoids disruption at the nation\u2019s two busiest ports.\u201d<\/p>\n
A strike by the local International Longshore and Warehouse Union group would likely lead to a more widespread walkout at terminals handling roughly 85% of port cargo at Long Beach and 33% at Los Angeles, the PMA statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLongshore workers, marine clerks and other ILWU members work under a separate coastwide contract and are not party to this dispute,\u201d an earlier PMA statement said. \u201cHowever, they are not expected to cross any Local 26 picket line, which\u00a0 could halt vessel, yard and gate operations at the affected terminals.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latest extension follows an earlier agreement that pushed a potential walkout from Sunday, Nov. 1, to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4.<\/p>\n
The ongoing labor talks, which began last year, come as both ports have been handling record cargo numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Port of Los Angeles encourages all parties to continue negotiating in good faith toward a mutually acceptable resolution,\u201d the port said in a previous statement. \u201cWe recognize the importance of reaching an agreement that serves the interests of the parties involved while ensuring the continued movement of cargo through our port. We remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached without any disruption to operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Port of Long Beach CEO Noel Hacegaba, meanwhile, said in a written statement that his port is \u201cclosely monitoring the negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain hopeful both sides will reach an agreement soon,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile the affected watchmen provide security within individual terminals, port-wide security provided by the Harbor Patrol and the Long Beach Police Department continues uninterrupted during negotiations. Although the Port of Long Beach is not a party to the negotiations, we want to assure our customers that we remain committed to moving cargo through our port safely and reliably.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pacific Maritime Association and ILWU Local 26 have agreed to extend the negotiating deadline for a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,131,133,132,47,137,100,3359,1438],"class_list":["post-520226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-news","tag-port-of-long-beach","tag-port-of-los-angeles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}