LOS ANGELES -- More than 4,400 ships carry nearly $400 billion worth of goods through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach every year, a crucial link in the global supply chain of factories, warehouses, docks, highways and rail lines.
Wages for most blue-collar workers along the chain have fallen with the quick rise of global trade. But the longshoremen who move the goods the shortest distance, between ship and shore, have protected pay that trumps that of many white-collar managers.
About half of West Coast union longshoremen make more than $100,000 a year -- some much more, according to shipping industry data. More than half of foremen and managers earn more than $200,000. A few bosses make more than $300,000. All get free health care.
Longshoreman pay dwarfs that of almost all other transit employees, such as trucking, railroad or airline workers. At big warehouse complexes in the Inland Empire, just an hour's drive from the ports, goods for the nation's largest retailers are shuttled around by temporary workers making as little as $10 or $11 an hour, with no benefits or job security.
The clout of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union came into sharp relief recently with the partial shutdown of 29 West Coast ports. The crisis passed with a contract deal a week ago, but it will take up to three months to clear the backlog of cargo on the docks and ships stranded offshore. Many businesses and workers won't recover the money they lost because of port gridlock.
Union spokesman Craig Merrilees said the shipping companies' pay figures fail to account for the more than 8,000 so-called casual workers -- part-timers who don't receive benefits and often work for years to become registered union members. The data, released by the Pacific Maritime Association, reflect 90 percent of the "registered" union members, or more than 12,000 workers.
The association declined a Los Angeles Times request for similar pay data for casual workers and about 1,100 lower-tier union members.
"They don't want to talk about the other workers," Merrilees said. "I don't think it's responsible."
A deal cut by union leaders half a century ago allowed workers to share in the gains from innovations in efficiency, such as modern shipping containers. Another key move: organizing all West Coast ports in the 1930s under a single contract, which prevents shipping companies from pitting workers at neighboring ports against one another.
More recently, longshoremen benefited from the rise of U.S. trade with other Pacific Rim countries, positioning the ports as a strategic nexus, another key leverage point in wage talks.
Since 1980, container traffic through West Coast ports has grown more than sixfold, according to the most recent data from the American Association of Port Authorities. Pacific ports now handle 52 percent of U.S. cargo volume, compared with 41 percent at East Coast ports.
The longshoremen's union has served as a gatekeeper for new entrants to the industry. There are more than 13,000 registered union longshoremen, clerks and foremen, according to West Coast shipping industry data from 2013.
But the more than 8,000 casual workers compete daily for hours of dock work, hoping to snag leftover shifts after union members get first pick. Many toil for years in a part-time holding pattern, waiting for a new round of hiring.
Patience can pay off. Full-fledged union members are divided into three classes: longshoremen, clerks and foremen/walking bosses.
The majority are longshoremen, about half of whom -- 4,900 -- made more than $100,000 in 2013, according to shipping company data; 1,400 longshoremen made more than $150,000 in 2013, according to the data.
More than half of the 600 foremen and walking bosses took home more than $200,000. At the top end, 85 of them earned more than $250,000.
Overtime, paid at higher rates, accounts for about a third of all hours worked, according to the shipping industry. Longshoremen also get bonuses for specific skills and night shifts.
A Section on 03/02/2015