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PORT STANDOFF: If No Resolution, Then What Next?
October 28, 2002
Summary
The long-running labor dispute at West Coast ports could re-emerge as a year-end crisis. But with the buildup for Iraq likely to be in full swing and the economic outlook still fragile, the Bush administration will have little patience for a strike. If one cannot be avoided, then Washington could be forced to take more drastic measures.
Analysis
Shipping companies have asked the U.S. Justice Department to hold members of the dockworkers' union in contempt of court for intentionally slowing the pace of operations at West Coast ports, the Seattle Times reported Oct. 24. As part of the complaint, shippers pointed to the fact that 194 ships were waiting to be unloaded off the West Coast ports on Oct. 21, compared to 224 ships 12 days earlier at the height of a management lockout of dockworkers.
As the court-ordered "cool-down" period enters its third week, management and labor are even further apart, and the docks are almost as clogged as they were when U.S. President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act Oct. 9 to end the lockout at 29 ports. Considering that the ports' operations are vital both to a buildup in Iraq and to the U.S. economy, Washington simply cannot afford another crisis precipitated by failed negotiations, which likely would result in a dockworker strike. Fearing the eruption of a new crisis in late December or early January -- at what could be the height of an Iraq buildup -- the Bush administration will exert extreme pressure on both the labor and management sides to settle.
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Dan
Port Standoff: If No Resolution, Then What Next . . . ?