The union for clerks who handle all the paperwork for ships coming to and leaving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reached a tentative agreement today on a new contract with 17 of the world's shipping lines and terminal operators, sources close to the talks said.

Details of the agreement were not immediately available, and union leaders and representatives for the companies were still huddled at a Long Beach conference center. Full details are expected this afternoon.

The deal, if ratified by union members, would avert a strike that could have shut down the nation's two busiest container ports. Because the two ports move more than 40% of the nation's container cargo, a strike might have led to federal intervention for the third time in 36 years to bring a strike to an end.

The last contract for the 930-member Office Clerical Unit, Local 63 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, expired July 1, and the two sides had been at odds over wage increases and hiring practices.

The clerks have elected their own officers and negotiated their own contracts since the mid-1990s. A strike by Local 63 members alone would have amounted to a thinly stretched line of pickets hardly noticeable among the vast movement of trucks, cranes and freight.

But the clerks are part of the 15,000-member ILWU, and its officials had indicated that the 7,000 members who work at the ports would honor the clerks' picket lines, which could have brought commerce there to a halt.

A strike lasting a day or two would not have caused a lot of business disruptions, experts said, but anything longer would have serious regional and national repercussions.

By: Ron White