Pier G Wharf Extension, Labor Pact Celebrated

A newly completed wharf improvement project to enable a terminal to welcome newer, larger and cleaner ships and a recently approved pact to ensure a supply of skilled workers for future construction projects were both celebrated in a combined event March 9 at the Port of Long Beach.

The Pier G Wharf Improvements Project adds 246 feet of new wharf at Pier G that will allow terminal operator International Transportation Service to accommodate container ships capable of carrying up to 16,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo. The $55 million project, funded by the port, also adds backland area and mooring infrastructure at Pier G.

The wharf extension was completed under a portwide project labor agreement between the port and the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council. Recently, the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners approved a new 10-year portwide project labor agreement. PLAs are used to ensure major infrastructure projects at the port will be completed without any work stoppages, strikes or lockouts. Under a PLA, workers – unionized or not – receive prevailing wages. The pacts require 40% of the work to be performed by local residents and provisions are made to offer training and apprenticeship opportunities.

The agreement also sets hiring goals with a focus on skilled laborers and apprentices in addition to veterans, single parents and other transitional workers. Contractors and subcontractors do not have to be union shops, but the pact requires them to pay prevailing wages and offer union benefits.