DATE=9/30/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=WEST COAST PORT LOCKOUT (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-294685

BYLINE=MIKE O'SULLIVAN

DATELINE=LOS ANGELES

INTERNET=YES

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cargo is sitting on shipping docks in California because of a labor dispute that could cost the U-S economy one billion dollars a day. Mike O'Sullivan reports, workers were ordered off the job again Sunday after a breakdown in talks between labor and management.

TEXT: The Pacific Maritime Association locked out more than 10-thousand workers at 29 Pacific ports in a what it called a "defensive shutdown." The association represents shipping lines and terminal operators, and it says the lockout, the second in three days, will be indefinite. The association says the action was a response to a slowdown staged by workers.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday the labor stoppage could hurt the U-S economy and the Bush administration is watching it carefully.

The dispute is partly over benefits but mostly over a plan to introduce new technology. Pacific Maritime Association spokesman Steve Sugerman says management hopes to computerize the shipping process, of which much of the tracking is now done manually.

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We need to bring these ports into the 21st century. That's the core of the issue in these talks.

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Tom Harrison of the Marine Clerks Union says the new tracking technology would allow some union jobs to be shifted from Pacific ports to so-called "right-to-work" states, where labor unions are weaker.

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And one of these days, if it's Phoenix, Arizona or one of these right-to-work states, that won't even be cheap enough. They'll move it to Bangladesh, India, or some other place. And that is not right.

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Los Angeles, Long Beach and other Pacific ports together process 300 billion dollars a year in cars, computers, food and other goods.

Port management is demanding that the workers extend a contract that expired July 1st before returning to the job. Negotiations were set to continue Monday afternoon in San Francisco. (Signed)

Neb/MOS/KBK