A PLEA for an injunction from the usually quarrelling union and port employers to stop the New York New Jersey Waterfront Commission interfering in the hiring of dockers have been brought before the US District Court.
The jobs for non-skilled labour pay US$100,000 a year and tend to be passed on from father to son and among friends. To the crime fighting Waterfront Commission, this means that too many white men are hired.
The commission, in what the plaintifs consider as brief creep, became involved with hiring under the rubric of criminal behaviour during a job selling scheme decades ago, and took over port's registry of dockers in 1966.
The commission is holding up the hiring of 682 dockers to replace those retiring in the first quarter to supplement a total headcount of 3,500 until its racial and gender diversity demands are met.
The commission's new rules requires sponsoring employers to certify that at every step of the hiring process, candidates are selected "in a fair and nondiscriminatory basis", reported Lloyd's List.
The plaintiffs argue that Waterfront Commission has no authority to make rules about the hiring of dockers, especially now that procedures are specified in a legal contract between the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the New York Shipping Association (NYSA).
Specifically, the injunction request asks the district court to have the commission to stop pressuring the employers group to refuse referrals from the union.
The "selection", when dockers are officially hired, is said to be less important than the "referral" stage when candidates are referred by the union to the employers for final selection.
The NYSA and ILA say their contract's language on certification refers to the selection of new employees, but that "the commission interprets the term 'selection' to include "referrals".
"The commission's interpretation is an attempt to pressure the members of NYSA to deny the ILA the right to refer individuals for employment," said in the plea for an injunction.
The employers and union say the rule change conflicts with their new labour contract, which specifies that 51 per cent of new hires will be military veterans, 25 per cent referrals by the ILA, and 24 per cent referrals by the NYSA.
The NYSA and ILA say confusion over hiring rules threatens to produce labour shortages such as those that combined with system glitches and construction to produce near-gridlock at New York-New Jersey terminals last summer.
"The commission should not be permitted to straddle the port like the Colossus of Rhodes standing in judgment of an entire industry that affects tens of millions of people and tens of billions of dollars in commerce," the NYSA and ILA said in their injunction plea.
WORLD SHIPPING
16 December 2013 - 19:31
NY dockers, bosses ask court to end Waterfront Commission hiring freeze
A PLEA for an injunction from the usually quarrelling union and port employers to stop the New York New Jersey Waterfront Commission interfering in the hiring of dockers have been brought before the US District Court.
WORLD SHIPPING
16 December 2013 - 19:31
NY dockers, bosses ask court to end Waterfront Commission hiring freeze
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