Union workers strike AMHS vessels

Vehicles line up to travel on the M/V Aurora. The vessel traveled with a full car deck on Sunday, July 21, 2019. Photo by Zachary Snowdon Smith/The Cordova Times

A strike of union boatmen shut down ferry service on the Alaska Marine Highway System on July 24, in the wake of three years of negotiations that have so far left a solution at an impasse.

Robb Arnold, a ferry system purser and vice chair of the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific executive committee, said efforts to negotiate a deal were continuing, but expressed concern that with budget cuts backed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy that half of the jobs for the union’s 420 members would go away.

Arnold said the union did not want to strike and that the decision to strike was a last resort.

State Transportation Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka said that contract negotiations had been ongoing since December 2016, but that “every offer, including concessions on pay increases, lump sum payments and benefit enhancements,” had been turned down by the IBU.

The AMHS ferry Aurora last left the dock at Cordova at 5:30 a.m. on July 24, headed for Whittier. When the strike began at mid-afternoon, the ferry headed back to Valdez.

Union officials issued a statement saying they were striking following the failure of Dunleavy’s negotiators to offer any meaningful compromise prior to the deadline.

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“We didn’t want to take this action and urged the governor’s negotiators to work with us to get a contract,” said Trina Arnold, director of the Alaska Region Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific, an affiliate of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

“Instead of working on a contract settlement that can keep the ferries running the administration wants to slash service and leave thousands of customers in those communities stranded,” Arnold said.

State transportation officials confirmed that the ferries would not be sailing until further notice. 

Meanwhile their focus was on contacting ticketed passengers to work with them to reschedule or offer refunds for tickets.

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