Port staff end strike action
Wednesday 05 December 2012
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EmailUnion negotiators have reached an agreement to end an eight-day strike that has crippled the largest US port complex.
International Longshore and Warehouse Union vice-president Ray Familathe confirmed on Tuesday that the 10,000 longshore workers in the ports of LA and Long Beach were going to start moving cargo again.
Striking clerical workers and the longshoremen who refused to cross their picket lines went back to work today.
The strike began when 400 clerical section members walked out. The clerks had been working without a contract for over two years and were fighting against outsourcing their jobs.
The walkout shut the ports when 10,000 dockers refused to cross picket lines.
Unions said if future jobs were not kept at the ports workers would take a serious economic hit so that huge corporations could increase their profit margins by exploiting people in other states and countries who would be forced to work for less.
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