by Tom Price
Warehouse Local 9 members suffered a setback in their efforts to secure health care benefits for laid off and retired workers at the Port of Seattle when Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts dismissed their lawsuit Aug. 8.
The suit, filed two years earlier and heard 10 months ago as a class action suit by former workers and retirees at the port’s Hasbro Toy warehouse, claimed the Port still owed the 150 workers health care benefits after Hasbro moved. The port was a participant in the medical plan covering Local 9 members and retirees as their employer. The plan said the port would cover retired workers health care benefits. But when the port ceased to participate and no more money was paid into the benefits fund, the obligation to pay retirees evaporated, the port claimed, and the judge apparently agreed.
"It’s as if the judge expects the members to appeal to a higher court, and that’s just what we will do," Local 9 Secretary-Treasurer Tony Hutter said.
The workers’ position is that those who retired or were eligible for retirement were owed the benefits if they vested before the warehouse was closed. They filed as individuals in a class action, not as Local 9 members.
The trouble began May 20, 2002 when Hasbro abruptly announced it would move to Ontario, Calif. to consolidate its operations. Layoffs at the 400,000 square foot facility for Local 9 began 11 days later. Local 9 lost 77 jobs immediately. Eventually, Local 9 would lose 150 jobs, nearly half its membership, and a contract that stretched back more than 33 years. Southern California is a huge market for toys, and trucks leaving the facility for other parts of the country will be able to return full of other products for that market. That provides a competitive incentive for moving there, industry analysts said.
Local 9 workers unstuffed seaborne containers and packed trucks with pallets arranged for the stores. They worked directly off the dockside and were a day closer to the Asian producers than Southern California, a competitive advantage in its own right. One advantage they could not overcome, however, was the non-union labor available to Hasbro in the south, where warehouse workers often make less than $8.00 an hour.
Even though the port knew Hasbro was gone for good, it issued temporary layoffs to most of the workers. That meant they were not eligible for severance pay, extended health care, career counseling and the opportunity to bid for other port jobs. In the fall of 2002 the port offered the workers another contract that slashed wages from $19.27 to $8.62 an hour. It was turned down by a 74 to 4 vote.
Then Local 9 entered into effects bargaining with the port. The port agreed to keep funding the pension plan for retirees and allow them to join the port’s health care plan for non-represented employees at the pensioners’ expense. Recently the port added $2 million to the pension trust and agreed to add $1 million a year in the future.
"The port was never seriously looked for new tenants after Hasbro left," Hutter charged. Despite its recent $4.2 million investment in computerizing the facility, at Hasbro’s request, the port started looking for a buyer. It sold the property last year to Charlie’s Produce, which sold it within a year at a 73 percent profit. Charlie’s never occupied the property. The new owners did a major clean up, but at this time the building sits empty.
"The judge’s one-paragraph decision is a bad decision, and we’re very disappointed in it," Hutter said. "She gave no analysis of the workers’ case and gave no explanation for denying the suit."
Reluctant to give up the fight for health care benefits, the workers appealed the decision to the Wash. State Court of Appeals Aug. 25.
"It’s not that the port couldn’t pay for these benefits, they just decided they wouldn’t," Hutter said.
