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Longshoremen’s union poised for strike
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
The Port of Charleston may be poised for its first real work stoppage in nearly 30 years, due to a long-standing impasse over allocations to the local longshoremen’s pension fund, union officials told the Charleston Regional Business Journal.
Ratification of a new local contract between the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422 and the South Carolina Stevedores Association was to have occurred in Sept. 2004, when Local 1422 ratified a master international contract approved by its parent organization and a district contract concerning the operation of ports in the southeastern United States.
But Ken Riley, president of the roughly 1,000-member Local 1422, balked at the local agreement, saying it didn’t provide enough of a bump to a pension plan he believes pales compared to those offered in other ports. Since that time his members have been working without a local contract, even though a formal extension of the old agreement has never been signed.
While Riley hopes a stoppage won’t be necessary, he has had the plan and the approval to move ahead with a job action for more than a year, he said.
“If I was the gung-ho, irresponsible type, I could call for a work stoppage today, but I’m still holding out hope that our members will be treated fairly,” he said.
Asked whether the longshoremen would wait another six months or a year before he called for a job action, Riley said allowing so much time to elapse would be a breach of his “fiduciary responsibility.”
“It won’t be that long,” he added. “A timetable is in place.”
National move weakened Charleston
Signs that unrest at the port had reached a new critical stage, began to emerge in early June, when Local 1422 filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, charging that the Stevedores Association had “breached its duty to bargain in good faith by failing to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement for the Port of Charleston.”
Shortly after that filing, the local held a closed-door meeting at its Morrison Drive headquarters, reportedly discussing a contingency fund that ILA members can use to pay their bills in the event of a work stoppage. Sources told the Business Journal that speakers emphasized that a stoppage could be either man-made or, this being hurricane season, natural.
Larry Young, president of the Stevedores Association, said his organization would not be cowed by such moves.
“I’ve known Kenny Riley for years, our families have worked side by side at the port for generations, and I like to think that for the most part we have a very harmonious relationship,” Young said. “In regard to this pension thing, however, I have to say that ship has sailed.”
All involved agree that the seeds for the dispute were sown several years ago as the International Longshoremen’s Association and its locals tried to find a way to grapple with the nation’s looming health care crisis.
Because they were closest to the actual workers, ILA locals were given a more or less free hand by the parent organization in regards to whether they invested the bulk of their reserve funds in their health care or pension plans.
Most union locals on the East Coast, Riley said, allocated much of that money to their pension funds, but Local 1422’s longstanding policy was to place more money into its health care plan.
But then, shortly before the union’s contracts came up for renewal, several ILA locals pressed for a national health care plan on the rationale that by banding together they could get better premiums and services for their members.
To achieve the savings they wanted, however, all ILA locals had to opt into the plan. In the interest of solidarity and in spite of being “better prepared to deal with the issue” than many other ports in the country, Local 1422 opted in, Riley said.
“The national health care package could never have gotten off the ground without our coming to the table, but it left us in a state of inequity,” Riley said.
Charleston lags in pension benefits
The problem, Riley explained, is that the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act prohibits unions from taking reserves allocated to one dedicated fund and redistributing them to another.
“Instead of being a port that could take pride in having superior health care reserves, because we always kept our pension contributions moderate and the playing field has changed, we are now the only major port in the country to have an inferior pension fund,” he said.
Although the mathematics of employee pension reimbursement can be complicated, the numbers suggest that payouts to retired dockworkers in Charleston lag behind those made to their counterparts in other port cities.
The easiest comparison is made to the Port of Savannah, where dockworkers’ pensions are credited with $105 a month for every year they work. At 20 years, the minimum length of service to qualify for a full pension package, those payments add up to a monthly pension of $2,100.
At the Port of Charleston, dockworkers are credited with roughly $82 a month for every year they work. At 20 years, those payments add up to a monthly pension of $1,640, a difference of $460 a month.
“Without an infusion of money into the port (from the stevedores, and by extension, the ocean carriers), we’ll never be able to get our pensions to the level of the Port of Savannah without taking on some huge, unfunded liabilities,” Riley said.
Those who sit on the other side of the negotiating table see things far differently.
Stevedores: Pension part of master contract
Young said the Stevedores Association corroborated Riley’s account of how the union local’s money was allocated.
“They went modest on the pensions and kept the health care program—a Cadillac of a health care program—stocked up,” he said.
“On a certain level, I feel for Kenny, because he didn’t really have a choice about whether to join the national health care program or not, but as I’ve told him many times, (the stevedores) don’t have a means to deal with the pension issue,” Young continued. “Pension fund contributions are governed by the master contract negotiated between the ILA national office and the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents all the employer groups.
“Basically, there’s no additional money for what Kenny wants us to do.”
Since becoming embroiled in the impasse, the port’s dockworkers have continued to unload ships, informally recognizing the contract that lapsed in 2004. There is no written agreement to keep working, nor are the two sides close to agreeing upon one.
The parties have been talking sporadically since the dispute arose, but both sides concede they should be talking more.
“Part of the problem is the ongoing globalization of the shipping industry,” Riley said. “We have a great relationship with the stevedores locally, but they no longer call the shots; the owners of international companies do.”
That’s one reason Riley filed a charge with the NLRB, he said.
“This process has to be resolved, and filling a charge at least gets a process started and gives me a chance to formally air a grievance on behalf of my workers. One thing is certain, we can’t continue to work on an extension without at least a document stating that there is an acknowledged extension in place.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
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