February 28 - Further to our previous reports, HLPFI understands that in the USA, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) have agreed to extend the March 1st deadline for completion of local negotiations to Mar

We also understand that the extended deadline will coincide with the wage scale meetings planned by the union for the week of March 11th.

As we reported earlier, ILA and the USMX reached a tentative agreement on February 1st on a new six-year master contract, which covers more than 14,000 ILA members who handle containerised cargoes in 14 East and Gulf coast ports in the USA.