Longshoremen Protest Against Metal Exporter

More than 100 longshoremen protested outside a Terminal Island scrap-metal export business Tuesday, the sixth day of a bitter labor dispute marked by competing accusations of violence.

An officer from the Los Angeles Police Department’s labor relations division said police were investigating an incident early Friday in which management officials from Hugo Neu-Proler Co. allegedly turned a water cannon on picketers from the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union.

Lt. Chuck Helm said officers were also looking into allegations that spurts of tear gas were exchanged between a company security guard and a protester. He added that no injuries had been reported throughout the dispute and that demonstrators have begun yielding to delivery trucks.

The conflict erupted Thursday when company officials dismissed a handful of longshoremen and replaced them with management personnel. An arbitrator ruled that day that according to the union contract the longshoremen should be returned to work.

Plant general manager Jeffrey Neu said he will not abide by the ruling because the fired longshoremen were “ghost workers” who would come in and collect pay without actually performing work.

“They sign their name and then leave within a half an hour,” Neu said. He added that Hugo Neu-Proler has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

Union officials said management contracts with longshoremen whenever a shipment is ready, yet consistently denies them the opportunity to perform the work, preferring to use a separate crew of full-time workers.

“It’s the employer’s choice to order [longshoremen] and send them home,” said Joe Cortez, president of the union’s Local 13. “We don’t want to get paid for nothing.”

At attorney for Hugo Neu-Proler acknowledged that the company may have violated its contract with the union by dismissing the longshoremen, but said the contract is itself invalid because it requires the employment of idle workers.