THE US National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that machinist jobs at a Seattle marine terminal do not belong to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), reports New York's Journal of Commerce.
This further clouds the status of coastwise longshore contract negotiations that are nearing a year as the union vowed to appeal the NLRB ruling.
The controversial jurisdictional issue involving Terminal 5 in Seattle had reportedly kept talks between the ILWU and Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) at a standstill for months.
At issue at the T-5 terminal, operated by SSA Marine, is competing jurisdictional claims by the ILWU and the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM) over 25 port mechanics jobs. It has become an issue in coastwise longshore labour talks because the ILWU accused SSA Marine of conspiring with IAM to "trigger" an NLRB hearing into ILWU's jurisdictional claim.
"The ILWU is confident that the NLRB decision, which cannot go into effect without court approval, will on appeal be overturned as legally wrong," said a union spokesman. "The ILWU expects that the companies signatory to its collective bargaining agreement abide by the terms of the contract they negotiated."
The process of moving the T-5 matter through the courts could easily take a year or two, raising questions about how that will affect labour talks between the ILWU and PMA.
The NLRB instructed the ILWU to "cease and desist from threatening, coercing or restraining" SSA Marine from assigning maintenance and repair work to members of the IAM. The order also instructed the ILWU to cease "pursuing lost work opportunity claims" at T-5.
In its coastwise contract negotiations with the PMA, which represents terminal operators and shipping lines, the ILWU has cited resolution of the T-5 jurisdictional dispute as a key issue in the negotiations.
The ILWU said that in the 2008 coastwise contract, it agreed it would not stand in the way of individual terminal operators who chose to automate cargo-handling activities. The quid pro quo, according to the ILWU, was that employers would assign jobs involved in future jurisdictional disputes to the ILWU.
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