Gardner Vows to Push Ahead with Strengthened State Authority in Port Crises
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., pledged on July 16 to push forward with his bill to give state governors more authority to intervene in labor contract crises at U.S. ports. The months of West Coast port shutdowns and slowdowns from 2014 to early 2015 illustrates the need to act quickly to avert another crisis, said Gardner in an interview. “We actually know that our first quarter of this year we saw a downtick in our GDP because of the port slowdown,” Gardner said. “We can do better and we’ll continue to push that bill.”
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The PORTS Act, S-1519 (here), amends the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, commonly known as the Taft-Hartley Act, to give authority to state governors to intervene in labor contract crises that cause slowdowns and shutdowns at U.S. ports, an authority currently provided only to the president. The legislation sets a strict timeline for the president to take action in a crisis following a request from a governor. If those deadlines aren’t met, the bill would allow governors to appoint a working group, referred to as a board of inquiry, to investigate the crises.
Gardner said the legislation may be critical when East and West coast union contracts expire in 2018 and 2019, respectively. “We face in 2019 the real possibility that both the East Coast and the West Coast will be having these same negotiations again,” said Gardner. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the group representing port workers on the West Coast, struck a new contract with the Pacific Maritime Association that expires in 2019 (see 1505260013). Meanwhile, International Longshoremen's Association, the East Coast union, and the U.S. Maritime Alliance are currently negotiating a contract extension beyond 2018 (here).