Wage Scale Delegate Subcommittees Reject Wage Freeze and Early Negotiations. Today: Vote by Full Committee.

All five subcommittees of the ILA’s Wage Scale bargaining committee unanimously voted to reject a management proposal brokered by ILA President Richie Hughes.

The management proposal is almost identical to the one the LWC exposed a week ago. Most delegates expressed anger at being asked to forgo the 2009 wage increase owed to ILA members on October 1 on one weeks notice.

Upon taking a closer look at the deal, most delegates felt that giving back money to the employers while not winning more job security language around technology and jurisdiction was unwise. Furthermore the proposed wage increases did not meet the original ILA demand to end the wage tiers with a reasonable bridge and management continues to play a shell game with the container royalty money dedicated to go to our benefit funds.

One delegate pointed out that a longshore worker who came into the industry on tiered wages in the early 1990’s would basically have had to wait almost 20 years to get to full scale.

Meanwhile, management has refused to answer the request for information made by the ILA Executive Vice President, Harold Daggett.

Today the full wage scale delegate body is supposed to vote on management’s proposed contract extension. Stay tuned.