US West Coast agreement: BIR congratulates ISRI for rewarded efforts

The BIR offers its congratulations to member organisation the US Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) for its prominent efforts towards bringing an end to commercially damaging port disruption on the US West Coast.

ISRI participated in a multi-association coalition that lobbied US Congress, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) regarding the adverse impact on business - including on the recycling industry - of the protracted negotiation of a new labour agreement.   

After more than a year of talks between the ILWU and the PMA, as well as some 10 months of disruption at 20 West Coast ports, the union’s members have ultimately voted 82% in favour of approving the new five-year agreement that will expire in 2019.