• NYSA Counsel successfully challenged an arbitration award that would have given a former ILA official a pension benefit based on 25 years of credited service when records showed that contributions had been received for only 18 years of credited service. Judge John S. Martin, Jr. of the District Court for the Southern District of New York held that permitting a union employee to obtain pension credits absent the payment of contributions by his union employer is a violation of section 302 of the Taft-Hartley Act. 
  
  
• Counsel is engaged in another lawsuit challenging the validity of a second arbitrator’s decision which awarded healthcare benefits to a former union officer even though no contributions were ever made by his union employer on his behalf. NYSA Counsel is seeking an order vacating the award of the post-retirement welfare benefits on the ground that providing healthcare benefits to this former union official is a violation of section 302 of the Taft-Hartley Act. 

PENSION BENEFITS  

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is currently considering the validity of the NYSA-ILA Pension Trust Fund’s ("PTF") application of its pre-ERISA service-break rule. PTF has appealed the district court’s ruling requiring it to amend PTF’s pension plan retroactively to January 1, 1976. This case has widespread significance because it is the first time since the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") was enacted in 1974 that a court has invalidated a pre-ERISA service-break rule. The district court’s decision is at odds with decisions in the Third and Seventh Circuits. If the district court’s ruling is affirmed, the split in the circuits might result in this case being accepted for review by the Supreme Court of the United States. 

PORT-WIDE ANTI-DISCRIMINATION PROGRAM 

NYSA has created a new comprehensive anti-discrimination employment program that also addresses workplace harassment. The purpose of the program is to ensure respect and dignity for everyone in the workplace. The program encompasses broad-based training programs as well as a new complaint handling and grievance process dedicated to investigating and remediating any claims that might arise. NYSA is working with the ILA to implement the program which should lessen the likelihood of the industry having to defend cases of employment discrimination like the two which NYSA Counsel is currently litigating. 

• Counsel successfully argued before a United States Magistrate Judge in the federal district court in New Jersey for the dismissal of all but one of the claims raised by a longshoreman alleging discrimination in connection with his application to return to employment in the longshore industry after a ten-year absence. 
  
  
• Counsel has responded to the EEOC’s document request in a charge of age discrimination filed with the Newark Area Office of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). A longshoreman has claimed he was denied enhanced pension benefits based upon his age. Counsel has provided to the EEOC the terms of the pension plan, which are in compliance with the governing federal law and applicable Internal Revenue Service regulations. 

Many longshore collective bargaining provisions, including wage rates and benefit eligibility, depend upon the date of an individual’s entry into the industry. There are two pending matters involving that issue.

• Counsel is currently engaged in discovery proceedings in an action in the Federal District Court in New Jersey against NYSA and the NYSA-ILA Container Royalty Fund by an individual with some minimal work hours in 1993 under temporary registrations issued by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor during summer vacation periods. The longshoreman is seeking PTF coverage and increased container royalty benefits even though he had no hours of work in the industry for two successive years before entering the industry as a regular employee in December 1996. 
  
  
• Counsel is advocating the position of the Management Trustees of PTF in a deadlock arbitration that a crane mechanic formerly employed in the Metro-ILA work unit who later began his employment with NYSA-member companies in May 1998 is not entitled to participate in PTF’s plan based on the provisions of the NYSA-ILA Contract which preclude participation for employees hired after October 1, 1996. 

CAPTIVE  INSURANCE PROGRAM 

More than 20 years ago the Directors, Officers and Counsel of NYSA created an insurance program to protect its membership from liabilities arising out of the implementation of master and local collective bargaining agreements. A second component of the program ensures the payment of contractually required contributions to fringe benefit funds. Directors’ and Officers’ Liability coverage is also provided to NYSA through the program as well as to the trustees who represent management on the various employee benefit trust funds. 

While available records indicate that collective bargaining of longshore contracts took place as early as 1916, it was in 1932 that a majority of port employers banded together to form NYSA. Collective bargaining, dis-pute resolution and benefits administration were the raison’d’etre. In 1953, the National Labor Relations Board certified the Association as the employers’ collective bargaining representative for employment covering "longshoremen, cargo repairmen, checkers, clerks and timekeepers and their assistants, general maintenance, mechanical and miscellaneous workers, horse and cattle fitters, grain ceilers, and marine carpenters." 

In 1955, the Association was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York to carry on the historic obligations of the Association and to "function as an association of owners and operators of ocean-going vessels." In 1971, upon petition of the Association, the Supreme Court of New York County amended the certificate of incorporation to read that NYSA would "function as an association of contracting stevedores, owners and/or operators of ocean-going vessels" with broad powers to represent all of its members in the Port of New York and New Jersey, a role the Association continues today.

  Submitted by Lambos & Junge,
 Attorneys to the Association