Meeting an effort to avoid work stoppage Sunday
In a last ditch effort to avert a strike that would cripple U.S. commerce, the International Longshoremen’s Association and management will meet one more time before the expiration of their contract extension at midnight Saturday.
Both sides agreed to come back to the table at the request of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the federal agency charged with mediating private sector labor disputes.
No date or place for the meeting was announced, although the last round of talks was held at the Marriott Hotel at the airport in Newark, N.J.
Those talks broke off last week with no more meetings scheduled.
Although a number of issues remain unresolved, the major sticking point involves container royalties, annual payments to dockworkers based on the weight of container traffic coming through their port.
The ILA represents nearly 15,000 workers at ports from Boston to Houston. If an agreement is not reached, they will walk off the job this weekend, shutting down the movement of container cargo at all major ports on the Eastern and Gulf coasts, including Savannah.