Current Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) used by unionized longshoreworkers, are combined with the local New York Shipping Association (NYSA) and the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA) agreements to address hiring and work issues not covered in the USMX-ILA Master Agreement. The “illogical interpretations” of the provisions outlined in the local documents has allowed for unfair hiring practices to prevail. The collective documents are referred to as the “NYSA-ILA CBA”.
The NYSA-ILA CBA is structured around 2 basic concepts. The first is the “gang system” where groups of non-specific numbers of individuals must all be hired together and paid together. The second concept is the “relief system” where the entire gang is paid as a unit, regardless of how many of them are working at any given time. This means that if one worker is working, the others can be considered to be “on break” and are also being paid for the hours. It allows corrupt leaders to pay individuals 24 hours a day whether they are working or not. Furthermore, regular hours and minimum pay guarantees workers regular pay between 8:00AM to 12:00PM and 1:00PM and 5:00PM. So if they are paid for being on break while someone else is working outside of these hours, they are all getting paid an overtime hourly wage even when they’re not at the pier.
The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor claimed in the report that 40 percent of the hours paid for labor at the port were for time in which no work was performed. NYSA President Joseph Curto says that “These practices, many of which have been in place for more than fifty years, have made the port unnecessarily expensive and less competitive. Now is the time to address issues of excess staffing and hours of pay that are not commensurate with the work performed, but the place to address these matters is at the bargaining table – not publicly in the political world and surely not in the press. We will address these issues during labor negotiations as part of a smart business plan; not because the Waterfront Commission thinks we should. The public policy of the United States calls for collective bargaining to be conducted by the private parties involved without governmental interference.”
According to an article by the Journal of Commerce, “the commission report recommended elimination of round-the-clock pay, and changes to require shop stewards to be elected by secret ballot, paid the same as co-workers, trained in responsibilities for representing union members. Other recommendations included distribution of desirable positions based on seniority and merit, and changes to require check-in of workers in a manner ‘capable of being audited, which takes advantage of technology and does not highly compensate favored individuals for little or no work’.”
About the Author: Nelson R. Cabrera is the Business Development Manager of Lilly & Associates International, a transportation and logistics company specializing in <a href=”http://www.shiplilly.com/”title=”Ocean Freight”>ocean freight</a> and <a href=”http://www.shiplilly.com/”title=”Ocean Shipping”>ocean shipping</a> services. For more information, please visit http://www.shiplilly.com/.
Sources:
http://www.joc.com/labor/waterfront-commission-blasts-ny-nj-port-job-practices
http://www.joc.com/joc_inc/pdf/Special_Report.pdf
http://www.waterfrontcommission.org/
http://www.joc.com/maritime/ila-timekeepers-paid-27-hours-day
http://www.joc.com/labor/nysas-curto-responds-waterfront-commission-report