Deal reached to end L.A. port strike

[No Elephants]

Deal reached to end L.A. port strike



By Dan Whitecomb and Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES | Wed Dec 5, 2012 4:12am EST

(Reuters) - Striking harbor clerks reached a tentative deal with management at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Tuesday night, settling an eight-day labor clash that has idled most of America's biggest cargo-shipping complex.

The strike cost Southern California, a region still struggling to recover from a prolonged economic slump, an estimated $8 billion, including lost wages and the value of cargo rerouted to other ports over the past week.

It marked the worst cargo traffic disruption at Los Angeles and Long Beach - which together account for nearly 40 percent of all U.S. container imports - since a 10-day lockout of longshoremen at several West Coast ports in 2002.

Tuesday's accord followed a resumption of talks with last-minute prodding from Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa, a onetime labor activist, who announced the deal moments after union negotiators voted to approve it.

Federal mediators called in to join negotiations at the mayor's behest earlier in the day showed up just as the settlement was being reached.

Officials for the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers (ILWU) Local 63 said the hundreds of clerical employees who walked off the job last Tuesday, and the thousands of longshoremen who had refused to cross their picket lines, would return to work starting Wednesday morning.

<snip>

But the mayor and ILWU representatives said the two sides had come to terms on the union's chief concern - control over outsourcing, or the transfer of jobs to workers elsewhere for less pay.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/05/us-usa-port-los-angeles-idUSBRE8B319D20121205

Notice how, in news stories, it is always the strike that costs a city or a company this much or that much. An employer's refusal to allay fears about job loss is rarely blamed for anything.

Fucking union-busting society and media.

[Enthusiast]

1. No Elephants,

you recognize the problem. No surprise. It is the media narrative, one that is strictly controlled. In every instance the media carries the corporate message. Strikes and labor issues are no different in that regard than the "fiscal cliff".

Our greatest problem is the national media. This is somewhat offset by the internet. But the powers of darkness are working overtime to counter the internet "problem".

[Divine Discontent]

2. good for the union! the super rich wanna screw with the unions as much as they can, and I'm glad

the unions cost them billions. hopefully, they got everything they were concerned about, like the outsourcing concerns that were mentioned.