(Adds background on labor dispute)
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 14 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has asked Labor Secretary Tom Perez to travel to California to help spur an agreement in talks with the dockworkers’ union that have led to closed ports along the U.S. West Coast, the White House said on Saturday.
“The negotiations over the functioning of the West Coast Ports have been taking place for months with the administration urging the parties to resolve their differences,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.
“Out of concern for the economic consequences of further delay, the president has directed his Secretary of Labor Tom Perez travel to California to meet with the parties to urge them to resolve their dispute quickly at the bargaining table.”
Perez has been in contact with the parties and will keep Obama updated, he said.
Negotiators for the union representing 20,000 dockworkers at 29 ports and management’s bargaining agent, the Pacific Maritime Association, have agreed to a federal mediator’s request for a 48-hour news blackout after a bargaining session on Thursday, which was the parties’ first face-to-face meeting in nearly a week.
The Pacific Maritime Association has said the talks hit a new snag over a demand by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union for changes in the system of binding arbitration of contract disputes.
The strike has caused a back-up of nearly 30 freighters wanting to unload cargo at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California.
Shippers first suspended vessel operations at the ports for two days last weekend and suspended operations again on Thursday, a union holiday. Port operations resumed in full for one eight-hour shift on Friday before the loading and unloading container ships was halted again. (Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Bill Trott and Frances Kerry)
