BY JOHN HARDING
BOSTON - Longshoremen walked off the job here November 14 in
a three-day strike in response to an attempt by the
Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) to deny workers pay for
waiting time after being called in for a job unloading a ship.
The action closed the container port in Boston's Moran Terminal
and forced the ship to steam back to New York to unload cargo.
The 250 members of the International Longshoremen's Association Local 1066 are seeking a new contract with Massport. The company is trying to force another round of concessions on the union to meet shippers' demands to consolidate port operations for container shipping at one port and open up a new automobile terminal at the Moran Terminal.
Bruce Fenimore, president of Columbia Coastal, which is one of the main companies shipping containers out of the port, told the Boston Globe that "if the consolidation doesn't take place, my company will have to leave." A senior official of Mediterranean Shipping Lines threatened to ship containers by train from New York, bypassing the Boston port, if the union doesn't come to heel.
Massport spokesman Jeremy Crockford stepped up the public pressure on the union by adding that the "Shipping lines are complaining. They say we're costing too much."