Dockworkers Report Back To Work

West Coast dockworkers headed back to work under court order Wednesday, facing a huge backlog of cargo that built up over 10 days but could take more than two months to clear.

"Simply put, it's more complicated to fix something than to break it," said John Pachtner, a spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping companies and terminal operators.

The 10,500 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union were expected to begin reporting to work at 6 p.m., ending a lockout that shut down 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle and cost the nation's fragile economy up to $2 billion a day by holding up exports and imports.

It's an uneasy truce, with union officials making allegations against both shippers and the Bush administration, and no contract agreement anywhere in sight.

Among the first cargo to be shipped will be perishables like seafood, meat and produce in refrigerated containers aboard some of the more than 200 ships anchored off the coast. After that, shipping companies will set their own priorities based on their customers' needs and demand for cargo.

The critical challenges will be lining up transportation on trucks, trains and planes, and finding enough longshoremen for what could be round-the-clock work, Pachtner said.

"We need the ILWU to provide as many able-bodied people as possible who are fully productive," he said. "That's what will unclog the pipeline as soon as possible."

Dockworkers said they would go back to work, though many were unhappy about it and cited safety concerns, given the pressure to move items quickly.

Union Pacific, the nation's largest railroad, sent extra cars to West Coast ports and opened a 24-hour "war room" in its dispatch center to give priority to eastbound shipments.

Manufacturers hoped to get parts in time to avoid layoffs and shutdowns.

"As soon as the (port) gates open, we think we can resume truck production by Friday morning," said Michael Damer, a spokesman for New United Motor Manufacturing in Fremont.

New United - the only major auto assembly plant west of the Rockies - had closed its assembly lines last week after exhausting its supply of parts usually shipped into Oakland. It resumed production Monday using parts delivered by air from Japan.

Some truckers said they would wait until the docks were working again before deciding how to proceed. "A lot of drivers aren't going to go because it will be backed up," said Stephanie Williams of the California Trucking Association.

The truckers are a key link in the transportation chain because they haul cargo between the waterfront and inland storage points.

Contract talks with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union broke down over pensions, job security, and the question of how to modernize West Coast ports using new cargo tracking systems and other technology.

Tuesday, a federal judge approved President Bush's request to reopen West Coast ports because of the risk damaging the fragile U.S. economy. The lockout is already estimated to have caused some $19 billion in damage across various sectors of the economy.

Three hours after Justice Department officials filed the request in federal court, Judge William Alsup ruled the government had proven use of the Taft-Hartley Act was necessary to stop the lockout's impact on the economy. President Bush became the first president in a quarter-century to use the act to intervene in a labor dispute.

"It is abundantly clear that the present lockout ... affects entire industries," Alsup said. "Docks are rotting with perishables."

The judge issued a temporary restraining order that expires Oct. 16, when he scheduled a hearing. Lawyers for both sides said they expect Alsup to impose the 80-day cooling-off period as mandated by Taft-Hartley at that time.

A cooling off period of that duration would keep ports open during the crucial Christmas season, when retailers rely on imported goods to stock their shelves.

"This dispute between management and labor cannot be allowed to further harm the economy and force thousands of working Americans from their jobs," President Bush said Tuesday, in a speech that coincided with an announcement from the 10,500-member dockworkers' union.

The union was announcing a last-minute agreement to temporarily extend their expired contract during negotiaitons - something management has been asking for - but for 30 days, not 90 days, as the shippers have demanded.

The port closings were caused by management locking out the workers - and not by a strike - but the court order isn't being viewed as a victory for the union.

Organized labor considers Taft-Hartley an anti-union mechanism for resolving disputes, and as such, some union officials are not happy at the circumstances in which dockworkers will be going back to work.

"They wanted to Taft-Hartley the union all along," says union spokesman Steve Stallone said. "All along, they wanted the government to come in and solve the problem for them."

Stallone said after Alsup's ruling that the association will try to harass the union by accusing workers of not meeting previous productivity levels while they try to clear crowded docks.

"I can guarantee you that they will start going to the judge and claiming there are slowdowns," Stallone said.

Those were the sort of allegations made by shippers when the lockout was imposed.

Pacific Maritime Association officials applauded President Bush's move. "We have to got to get this behind us," association president Joseph Miniace said.

President Bush's intervention is expected to energize organized labor, traditionally a Democratic ally, just four weeks before midterm elections. Democratic candidates depend on heavy turnout from union workers, and some presidential advisers fear Bush's intervention will drive angry labor voters to the polls.

"No president has ever been on this side of management this overtly," said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.

The Bush administration denies any bias in the contract dispute.

President Bush sought a court order to reopen the ports after an inquiry board handpicked by the White House reported the standoff was unlikely to end soon.

The last time a president sought to intervene under Taft-Hartley was in 1978, when a court refused President Carter's request for an 80-day cooling-off period in a coal miner's strike, but ordered miners back to work under a temporary restraining order.

In the Midwest, farmers are cautiously relieved that the crops they grew will finally be going to market.

Steve Strege, executive vice president of the North Dakota Grain Dealers Association, said it will take several days to get grain shipments moving.

"I'm glad that we're seeing something going on," Strege said. "There's some hostility there, so I don't know what we can expect. But it seems to be a movement toward resolution."