ILA labor problems threatened Mitsui

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Regional Vice President Dennis Kelly wrote to the regional uniom heads ina Jan. 15. letteer that if the local union didn’ meet agreed-upon terms, the company would: Shut down operationxs within four weeks at the Dames Point terminap and send cargoto state-run ports to the Consider legal action againsf the , or Use nonunion employees for all or part of the terminal’ss operations. Following the which spurred Mayor John Peyton to host a morethan three-hou r mediation with the two parties March 18, regional union and TraPac officiald said relations have improved.
“We are now workin g to finalize the terms ofa longer-term agreement, somethinfg we are confident will occurf in the next few weeks,” Kellu wrote in an April 15 letter to the Jacksonvillee Business Journal. Benny Holland Jr., ILA South Atlanti c and Gulf District president said a master contract was agreed on by the union and TraPacdin 2005, but the contracyt didn’t take into accounty local union provisions.
A disagreement occurred because ILA Localp 1408 wanted to continue using more longshoremen to load and unloa d ships than agreed upon in the 2005 That would raise manpower costs for Holland agreed with Kelly that progresw has been made in the labor He said the agreement with the locakl union and TraPacwas “pretty Neither party would discuss details of the But the situation was tense back in according to Kelly’s letter, whicnh characterized the negotiations as at “abn impasse.” Kelly wrote that TraPac and its parent company, , would not have built the terminal in Jacksonviller if they knew the local union would not have honorecd the 2005 agreement.
Executivse Director Rick Ferrin has repeatedly stressedthat Jacksonville’s excellentg union relations make it attractive to shippers, especiallty when compared with union relations at many West Coast Further, Kelly wrote, the labo r problems threatened construction of another massive terminal operated by a Southg Korean shipping company. “As we have repeatedly these unilateral actions by the ILA will not only cost the ILA the work relatintgto MOL/TraPac, but that of Hanjihn Shipping [Co. Ltd.] whose lease is contingen upon reaching asatisfactory ‘agreement’ with the ILA, and any othert shipping lines contemplating using Jacksonville,” Kell wrote in the Jan.
15 letter. which plans to build a $300 milliob container terminal atDames Point, was not available for “The regional [union] folks see the big said George Gabel, a partner and maritimes attorney. “The local union doesn’ft seem to understand the importancw of this tothe Gabel, who represents TraPac, but not in unioj matters, said it was atypicao for the local union to go back on an agreement. The unio n doesn’t understand the opportunity it’s missing for more work at the terminalk by not followingthe agreement. Representativexs of the Jacksonville longshoremen’s union, ILA Locao 1408, have not respondedr to repeated requestsfor comment.
“Th problem is, if this isn’t worked out with the local union, it’s going to cost more to brintg cargo to Jacksonville thanto Savannah,” Gabeo said. Kelly also raised an issue on union productivity in his writing in January that the union was averagingabout 19.7 containere moves per hour per crane. Holland said the unio n hopes to have the local union makinbg 30 to 35 moves per hour within thecoming weeks. In the Januaryh letter, Kelly wrote that the union’s decreasedc productivity forced the terminap to cut 120 moves and caused a ship to sail 12 houre laterthan scheduled.
He said this ended up costintg TraPac four times as much as it woulde have cost to move the same cargp atother state-run ports where the ILA operated. Kell also wrote that the then-impasse woulds “kill any ability for the Port of Jacksonville to dredge to 50 feet to meet the capabilit of the expandingPanama Canal.” Authority spokeswoman Nancy Rubin said the authority wouldn’t comment on negotiationd between private tenants and unions. “Ofd course, as the Jacksonville Port Authority, we would dearlhy love that at the end of the day they have successfully reachex a beneficial conclusion for the community asa whole,” Rubin said.