NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) has won an appeal over the South Carolina Ports Authority Hugh Leatherman Terminal in the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a 2-1 decision, the court decided the ILA was within its rights to sue the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) after the alliance docked at the Hugh Leatherman Terminal in North Charleston and proceeded to use non-union dockworkers to unload their ships. According to court documents, ILA and USMX had entered into a collective-bargaining agreement before the incident that had earmarked all container loading and unloading work on the East and Gulf Coasts for the union's members.
With the court's decision, the "hybrid model" the South Carolina Ports Authority had operated in -- where non-union employees operate lift equipment to load and unload the containerships and ILA members perform the rest of the longshore work -- ends.
South Carolina had used the hybrid model in two ports and when the Hugh Leatherman Terminal opened in North Charleston in 2020, the state began operations using the hybrid system. This was in direct conflict with the collective bargaining agreement between the ILA and USMX that required USMX carrier members to refrain from doing business at any new facility where ILA members don’t perform all the longshore work.
Court documents state "USMX, the ILA, the Ports Authority, and the State of South Carolina met several times over the ensuing months but couldn’t agree on a work arrangement for the new terminal. At one meeting, the ILA proposed that the existing hybrid terminals be “redline[d]” and allowed to keep using non-union labor, but that all longshore work at the new terminal be performed by ILA members. The State and the Ports Authority responded that they weren’t bound by Section 7(b) and were free to use non-union lift workers at the new terminal just as they had at the older Charleston terminals."
South Carolina and the Ports Authority filed an unfair labor practice charge with National Labor Relations Board against ILA, USMX and the local union, claiming they had violated the National Labor Relations Act by agreeing to a “hot cargo” provision—a provision barring an employer from doing business with another party.
