Representatives with the Pacific Maritime Association and International Longshore & Warehouse Union met Nov. 1 in San Francisco for the first of what could be a series of meetings regarding a possible contract extension, both sides have confirmed.
Both parties also say that they’ve agreed to resume talks on an extension at a future date to be mutually agreed upon.
Any extension would be to the 2014-2019 collective bargaining agreement between the two sides that was ratified in May 2015. The agreement, which was announced in February of last year, came together after nine months of occasionally contentious talks between the union and management.
Negotiations didn’t begin until weeks before the contract’s July 1, 2014 expiration and dragged on before an agreement was eventually hammered out.
The current contract, which was made retroactive to July 1, 2014, runs through June 30, 2019.
The early start to these contract talks came at the behest of the employer group, which earlier this year made the initial request to discuss the possibility of an extension to the 2014-2019 collective bargaining agreement. In August, more than 100 union delegates representing ports from San Diego to Bellingham, Washington convened to consider and approve the request.
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