Dock workers on the US' west coast Tuesday hit back at charges by shipping line bosses that they have been staging an illegal go-slow since being forced back to work after a crippling 10-day ports shutdown.
The denial that longshoremen had been working at an unreasonably slow pace to clear billions of dollars worth of goods -- much of it from Asia -- from cargo-clogged US Pacific ports was filed with the justice department.
The move forms the latest chapter in an acrimonious legal battle between dockers and employers that has seen both sides trading almost daily barbs over who is to blame for the shutdown and the economic quagmire it has caused.
The move by dockers came three weeks after a San Francisco-based judge ordered union members and shippers back to work after US President George W. Bush invoked rarely used powers to intervene in the row and reopen the ports.
The document was filed six days after shippers formally complained to the justice department that dockers were deliberately slowing operations in 29 ports and asked Washington to intervene in the row that has hit Asian trade.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union said in its legal letter that shippers were "misleading the agency by distorting the facts at the heart of the backlog facing the West Coast ports.
"In reality, it is management's continued refusal to address personnel, congestion and safety issues that are affecting productivity on the docks."
The union went on to categorically deny "any concerted effort by the union to slow production on the docks."
If the justice department feels a deliberate slowdown is underway in America's western trade gateways, it could ask a federal judge to take action against the allegedly reluctant longshoremen for defying an Oct. 9 injunction that ordered them to work normally.
Such a move could have enormous consequences and could potentially lead to fines for the union and possible imprisonment for its leaders.
The court order reopened the Pacific ports three weeks ago after Bush asked it to intervene, ending a devastating 10-day shutdown that cost the US economy up to US$2 billion a day and hurt export-driven Asian economies.
But even since ports reopened, US retailers and manufacturers are complaining that orders are still jammed in ports, putting them at risk of huge losses and jeopardizing sales during the crucial Christmas retail sales season.
Shippers say that some 200 ships are still waiting to unload their precious cargos in ports, almost as many as there were when Bush intervened.
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