US Secretary of Labor Tom Perez is to travel to California to help broker an agreement between shipping companies and dockworkers in a dispute that has led to a partial shutdown of ports along the US west coast, the White House said on Saturday.
The move by US President Barack Obama’s administration came after shippers vowed to prevent the loading and unloading of freight through today from container ships at the 29 ports, barring a settlement in talks with the dockworkers’ union.
The shipping companies said that they were unwilling to pay union workers higher wages for weekend shifts and the Presidents’ Day holiday today while productivity declines and cargo backups reach the point of near gridlock, after months of chronic congestion in freight traffic.
The impact of the dispute has rippled through the US commercial supply chain, slowing deliveries of a wide range of goods, from agricultural produce to housewares and apparel.
“The negotiations over the functioning of the west coast ports have been taking place for months with the administration urging the parties to resolve their differences,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. “Out of concern for the economic consequences of further delay, the president has directed his secretary of labor Tom Perez to travel to California to meet with the parties to urge them to resolve their dispute quickly at the bargaining table.”
Perez has been in contact with the parties and would keep the president updated, he added.
On Friday, negotiators for the union representing 20,000 dockworkers at the ports and management’s bargaining agent, the Pacific Maritime Association, agreed to a federal mediator’s request for a 48-hour news blackout. The two sides held a bargaining session on Thursday that marked their first face-to-face meeting in nearly a week.
Retailers had long pressed Obama to intervene in the dispute. In a statement, a National Retail Federation official welcomed the White House announcement.
“The slowdowns, congestion and suspensions at the west coast ports need to end now,” National Retail Federation supply chain and customs policy vice president Jonathan Gold said in a statement.
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