Dive Brief:

• The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) released a statement last week to announce it was ready to "battle" for its members' employment rights on the Delaware River, and would go so far as retiring those chapters from the East Coast master contract if necessary.
• "All waterfront jobs at the Port of Philadelphia and Wilmington belong to my ILA members and we are ready and prepared to do whatever it takes to get those jobs back," said ILA President Harold Daggett in a statement.
• The ILA chapters in those ports have been slowly losing work, as other companies are hired to work on the terminals they traditionally operated, American Shipper reports. 

Dive Insight:

The announcement is a new obstacle for the ongoing talks to extend longshoremen's contracts at East Coast ports for six more years.

The United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents port employers on the East Coast, is scheduled to meet with members of the ILA in Delray Beach, Florida, the first full week of June. The two groups are trying to get a new deal before the contract expires Sept. 30, to avoid potential disruptions to business.

But a new deal will be far from simple, as union members strive for better pay, benefits and labor guarantees, and their counterparts seek business solutions to make their terminals more efficient. 

The question of labor guarantees is particularly sticky for the ILA, and has been a sore point for both parties over the past year as automation technology spreads to maritime gateways. The union nearly led a strike last year as it protested non-union labor at the Port of Charleston.

"USMX has been promoting its strong partnership with ILA and touting the four-plus decades of industry stability at ports on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts," Dagget said. "The ILA believes its Master Contract with USMX has allowed non-ILA companies operating out of the Port of Philadelphia to prosper and grow while ILA workers suffer."

The pronouncement could just be a tactic by the ILA to secure more concessions from employers, but it shows the hyper-local concerns that are likely to drive the coastwide negotiations through September.