Tentative deal reached on technology in West Coast port labor talks

Friday, November 1st 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ West Coast longshoremen and shipping companies reached a tentative agreement Friday on the use of computer technology _ the major sticking point in the bitter dispute that shut down the ports for 10 days last month.

Both sides hailed the deal on the introduction of new cargo-tracking systems as the first tangible progress in negotiations since the shutdown.

The dockworkers union and the association representing shipping lines were compelled to restart talks after a federal judge granted President Bush's request for an 80-day ``cooling-off'' period that reopened the ports.

Federal mediator Peter Hurtgen announced the agreement regarding cargo-tracking technology but would not disclose details.

He said the agreement was reached at 4 a.m. after all-night talks.

The two sides have yet to come to terms over such things as pensions and arbitration of disputes, and the talks could still break down over those issues.

The new electronic cargo-tracking technology is expected to make some waterfront jobs obsolete.

During the negotiations, the 10,500-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union had said that it would agree to cuts in the number of marine clerks if the Pacific Maritime Association would agree that some of the new jobs created by the technology would be under the union's jurisdiction.

``We had our bottom line on jurisdiction on what we could do, what we could accept, and they met our bottom line,'' union spokesman Steve Stallone said. ``So we consider this a real victory and the first real progress we've had in these negotiations.''

Last month, the maritime industry locked out the dockworkers at the nation's 29 West Coast ports, accusing the longshoremen of a deliberate slowdown. The shutdown cost the U.S. economy more than $1 billion a day.

It caused cargo to pile up at the docks and forced ships to lay at anchor offshore, waiting to be unloaded. Some factories had to shut down for lack of supplies.