LOS ANGELES — West Coast ports received more good news Monday as the Marine Exchange of Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor said that the vessel backlog there was down to 92 ships, and is expected to decline further in the days ahead.

That followed an announcement Friday that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association had reached a tentative agreement on technology in their contract talks.

PMA negotiators were meeting Monday to develop a proposal on pensions. Now that the ILWU has made concessions that will cost the union as many as 400 marine clerk jobs, the ILWU is looking for a benefits payback.

Still to be resolved is the important issue of revamping the ILWU-PMA arbitration system, as well as wages and the length of the contract. West Coast waterfront contracts are normally for three years, but employers are looking for a five-year deal.

It appears that Los Angeles-Long Beach, the nation's busiest container hub, which was hurt much more by the 10-day employer lock-out in October than the other West Coast ports, will make progress this week in reducing its vessel backlog. At its peak, 126 vessels were waiting for dock space, said Manny Aschemeyer, executive director of the Marine Exchange.

The ports last week reduced the backlog to about 90 ships, and that number dipped as low as 87 vessels before a surge of arrivals over the weekend. However, terminal operators should make more progress this week because fewer vessels are expected to arrive.

At this time of year, about 15 vessels call in Los Angeles-Long Beach each day, Aschemeyer said. The vessel manifest this week calls for four ships to arrive on Tuesday, eight on Wednesday, 12 on Thursday and eight on Friday.

This is good and bad news for terminal operators. With fewer ships coming in, the vessel backlog will not grow as quickly as it had been since the lock-out ended on Oct. 9.

However, it also means that some vessels have been diverted to other ports - lost business for terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach. Terminal operators will find it more difficult to achieve the minimum cargo volume commitments they have in their contracts with the ports.

Also, the reduced number of vessel arrivals means that some ships were stuck at the ports for so long that they are completely out of rotation and it will take weeks, if not months, to get them back into their normal weekly rotation.

Ships are normally worked within 48 hours of arrival. In October, ships were sitting at anchor for 15-20 days, Aschemeyer said. When they went to berth, they sat idle as many as nine days before labor was dispatched. Even then, terminals were limited to three work gangs, rather than five as are required on large container ships.

Seattle-Tacoma and Oakland never experienced the serious backlogs that occurred in Southern California. The jam-up of more than 20 vessels in Seattle-Tacoma that occurred during the shutdown has been largely cleared up.

By Bill Mongelluzzo