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Nation in brief
Compiled from Times wires Both sides claim gains in longshoremen dealLOS ANGELES -- The tentative contract that West Coast port operators and longshoremen announced early Sunday achieves major gains for both sides and is likely to ensure six years of labor peace after a dispute that closed 29 ports and threatened to derail the economy. The deal gives the West Coast's 10,500 longshoremen large pension increases and gives the port operators and shipping lines permission to use far-reaching technologies to speed cargo handling. The White House announced the accord shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday, ending a dispute that had closed the ports for 11 days before President Bush obtained an injunction to reopen them last month. "This agreement is good for workers, good for employers, and it's good for America's economy," Bush said in a statement the White House issued as the union and port operators were signing an agreement in San Francisco. Before Sunday's announcement, the dispute had threatened to close the West Coast ports Dec. 27, when the 80-day injunction reopening the ports was to expire. Among shipping companies, factories and retailers, there was widespread fear that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union would begin a strike soon after Christmas if there was no accord by the time the cooling-off period ended. Pensions were one of the last issues settled, officials involved in the negotiations said. Under the agreement, reached after more than a month of negotiations in San Francisco, longshoremen's pensions will rise by more than 50 percent, the officials said. A longshoreman with 30 years' experience will be able to retire with an annual pension of $54,000, compared with the current $34,200. Several labor analysts said the union had pressured management to grant large pension increases in exchange for the union's agreeing to accept new technologies that are expected to eliminate the jobs of more than 400 marine clerks who keep track of cargo. In the agreement, management promised not to lay off any of those clerks. The wage increases in the package are more modest than the pension increases. The longshoremen's basic wage, $27.50 an hour, will rise by $3 an hour, or 11 percent, over six years. With premiums, night differentials and overtime added, longshoremen now earn nearly $100,000 a year on average. On Sept. 29, the port operators and shipping lines closed ports from San Diego to Seattle and locked out the longshoremen, contending that the union was engaged in a slowdown, something the union denied. With some economists estimating damage of $1-billion a day to the economy, the lockout caused some factories to close, some perishable cargo to rot and many retailers to worry about inventory shortages. Concluding that the shutdown was endangering the nation's economy and security, Bush invoked the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act on Oct. 8 to obtain an injunction reopening the ports. Peter J. Hurtgen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, was in San Francisco for much of the last month, working with the two sides to reach an agreement. "The fact that it is for six years provides stability for the nation," Hurtgen said. "We don't have to worry about shutdowns and slowdowns at the ports." Union officials said 100 rank-and-file longshoremen would meet at a caucus Dec. 9 to consider the agreement. Then, after the pact is described to all the longshoremen, all union members will vote on it in a secret ballot. Two subway workers killed by trains in N.Y.NEW YORK -- Officials were reviewing safety procedures for maintenance work on the city's subway tracks Sunday after two workers were struck and killed by trains. Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Roger Toussaint said the union has complained repeatedly about inadequate warning procedures for track workers about oncoming trains. On Saturday, he demanded an emergency meeting with New York City Transit officials about the deaths. "What we hope to achieve out of this is no more deaths," Toussaint said. "We've had four fatalities in the last 18 months. We can't take this anymore." Signal maintainer Joy Antony was struck and killed Thursday about 200 feet from a station on Manhattan's Upper West Side while checking the box that controls the signal lights. Friday night, 57-year-old Kurien Baby, who washed, cleaned and replaced lights on the platform, was struck and killed in a Lower Manhattan tunnel. Ice closes Wyo. interstate, causes dozens of crashesCHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Icy conditions caused dozens of accidents on the highways in the Rocky Mountain foothills Sunday, injuring at least five people and causing authorities to temporarily close a 90-mile stretch of Interstate 80. At least 110 accidents, including some rollovers, were reported from midnight Saturday to Sunday morning, the Wyoming Highway Patrol said. A 9-year-old girl was killed in an accident in western Nebraska. One crash in Wyoming involved 12 semitrailer trucks and six cars. The ice was left behind by the remnants of a major storm that dumped at least a foot of snow in the central and western mountains overnight.
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From the Times wire desk
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