West Coast Longshoremen Ratify Six-Year Port Labor Contract Agreement
West Coast Contract 090623
Good news on the west coast, reports the U.S. Meat Export Federation, as West Coast Longshoremen have now ratified a six-year port labor contract agreement, following the tentative agreement reached in June.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union agreed to a six-year contract, effective July 1, 2022 through July 1, 2028.
“This is fabulous news for us and our members and specifically for exporters,” USMEF President and CEO, Dan Halstrom explains. “We have some certainty around the situation on the West Coast. We will not run the risk of any kind of disruption from a labor standpoint.”
Halstrom adds, this ratification allows meat exports to move forward, especially high-value, chilled business that primarily goes off the West Coast.
However, with the uncertainty in West Coast labor, there has been a recent shift in cargo to the East and Gulf Coast ports, USMEF reports. Halstrom is hopeful this trend will reverse.
“Over the last year in particular, the West Coast has been losing discretionary business, on the import side especially, losing to the Gulf and East Coasts,” he explains. “Hopefully, Long Beach and Oakland—key export ports for us—can regain some of that business and have a larger array of options from a schedule standpoint into some of our key markets like Japan and Korea.”
USMEF notes that a separate union represents longshoremen on the East and Gulf Coasts. Their current contract is set to expire in the fall of 2024 with negotiations on a new labor deal set to begin soon.
