After the West Coast Ports Conflict, Damage Remains
This post has been viewed 2,768 times.
To alleviate crisis negotiations, keep them from escalating in the first place.
No one wants to engage in crisis negotiations. When parties need to hurriedly work out a solution to a shared problem, time is short, tempers are frayed, and the disaster is looming. Feeling they’ve exhausted good-faith bargaining, parties in crisis negotiations may believe they face an impossible choice between caving in to the other side’s demands or standing firm and watching the worst-case scenario unfold.
That seems to be the choice that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) thought they faced when their negotiations for a new labor contract stalled in mid-2014.
The lack of agreement quickly became a problem. The PMA accused the ILWU of a deliberate work slowdown that left billions of dollars in imported consumer goods stranded at ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. For its part, the union said poor management was to blame for delays. The longshoremen and port management have had a contentious history for decades, according to the New York Times.
Read original articleTags:
