American Cruise Lines has canceled 17 visits to Anacortes after its refusal to allow local union dockworkers to handle its lines at the Port of Anacortes piers.
American Cruise Lines ships that have stopped in Anacortes for the past 13 years will no longer do so starting Sept. 7.
The port announced Aug. 25, that it will no longer accept vessel-berthing reservations from American Cruise Lines after months of “extensive but ultimately unsuccessful” negotiations between the company and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 25 in Anacortes.
In recent years, American Cruise Lines small cruise ships have typically stopped in Anacortes about 50 times each year for a day at a time between March and October.
The company’s American Spirit cruise ship docked at Curtis Wharf on Sunday and is set to be back Sept. 6. Another 17 visits that had been on the books from Sept. 7 through October are now canceled.
The company declined to comment on the port’s decision or answer a reporter’s questions about how the cancellations would affect its cruises and why it was unable to reach an agreement with the local union.
Johnny Decker, a 20-year dockworker who represents Anacortes’ roughly 10-member ILWU chapter, said the local union approached the port early this year to reclaim the work of tying up and releasing ACL’s ships after voluntarily giving up that work soon after the cruise ships started coming to Anacortes in 2013.
“We did tie them up when they first came,” Decker said, “and then we backed off because we wanted to see if it would take off.”
In an Aug. 3 letter to the port, the local union said that it “was done in good faith to allow for an incubation period for the good of” the port, the community and the company.
“But we have been clear since the beginning that if it started picking up and more ships started coming out, we would want those jobs back,” Decker said.
According to ACL’s online job descriptions, crew members such as deckhands typically handle the lines when their cruise ships come and go from ports.
However, at public ports up and down the West Coast, line work has long been reserved for union dockworkers under a contract between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association, which is a nonprofit trade group representing Pacific coast shipping industry employers.
“The labor standard on the West Coast is ILWU,” said John Dumas, executive director at the Port of Anacortes, noting that the port has a labor agreement with the ILWU.
The port wrote in its news release Aug. 25 that it is committed to upholding that labor standard.
“While the Port regrets that a mutual resolution could not be achieved — particularly given ACL’s more than decade-long relationship with the community — the Port remains focused on protecting its labor principles, honoring union partnerships, and maintaining alignment with practices across West Coast ports,” the release reads.
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