In Our View: Obama Finally Intervenes

It was a long time coming, but President Barack Obama finally has placed a little executive oomph behind trying to get West Coast ports moving again.

The administration has deployed U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez to hopefully facilitate an agreement between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shippers and operators. The groups have been at odds for nine month in a labor dispute, creating an impasse that has led to work slowdowns and has generated numerous ripple effects. In Washington, those slowdowns have had a negative impact on the shipment of apples, potatoes, hay and Christmas trees to overseas markets, costing billions of dollars in both lost payments to producers and lost salaries for workers. Up and down the West Coast, the conflict has led to container ships sitting idle off the coast, waiting for off-loading.

And while officials at the Port of Vancouver have not noted any work slowdowns, the issue continues to expand. Last week, South Korea-based Hanjin Shipping, frustrated by slowdowns at the Port of Portland, announced that it will be pulling its operations out of the port in March. The loss of Hanjin, according to Portland port officials, will directly affect 657 jobs; it also will impact businesses throughout the Northwest that now must truck goods to large ports in the Puget Sound region.

Throughout the conflict, Obama has been reluctant to intervene. Just last week, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said, “We believe it should be resolved at the negotiating table.” And while reasonable arguments can be presented that federal intervention is an overreach, the long failure to act amounted to an abdication of responsibility on the part of the executive branch.

There is, after all, much precedence to support presidential interjection into labor disputes of national economic importance. During World War I, the National War Labor Board was established under President Woodrow Wilson to arbitrate disputes between workers and employers and to ensure productivity that contributed to the war effort; a similar board was convened during World War II under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 2002, when ports closed as the result of a labor dispute, President George W. Bush invoked powers enumerated under the Taft-Hartley Act to impose a cooling-off period and forbid work slowdowns. And, in a more extreme example, in an attempt to pre-empt a strike by the United Steelworkers of America, President Harry S. Truman in 1952 nationalized the steel industry, an action that later was deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

We would not recommend that Obama nationalize the nation’s ports. Nor would we suggest that the administration should take sides in the dispute between workers and management. Not being privy to the negotiations or to the deep-seated concerns on both sides, we are not qualified to suggest that either party is on the side of the angels in the conflict. But it is perfectly reasonable to expect the Obama administration to bring the sides to the bargaining table and to help facilitate a solution. That is called leadership, and it is the kind of action that is necessary when a dispute has widespread consequences for the nation’s economy. In Congress, members from both chambers and from both parties have called for federal arbitrators to get involved; the issue is that important.

Finally, President Obama has demonstrated that he agrees.