LOS ANGELES -- Waterfront employers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union will take emergency action to resolve the labor shortage in Los Angeles-Long Beach by hiring 3,000 part-time workers, known as casuals, and promoting about 1,000 existing part-timers to full-time status.

The first wave of new workers should be trained and on the docks in three weeks, said James McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, in announcing the plan on Wednesday.

Containerized imports from Asia increased 14 percent at the nation's busiest port complex in the first half of the year, about double what industry analysts projected. Preliminary indications are that July will be another near-record month, with even stronger volumes anticipated this fall during the height of the peak shipping season.

The surge in cargo volumes, coupled with a gradual erosion of the ranks of casual workers in recent years, produced an unprecedented labor shortage.

Earlier this month, employers were unable to fill as many as 80 14-man work gangs per shift. Vessels sat at anchor 24 hours or longer unable to load or unload cargo.

Since June, even after calls for every available casual worker to handle basic longshore work such as lashing containers, 300 to 500 jobs went begging each shift.

The PMA and ILWU two weeks ago agreed to immediately hire about 1,200 temporary workers. About 400 of those were casuals currently on the rolls who had stopped doing longshore work because they weren't getting enough hours during the slack shipping months. Since they had already been trained, they were able to immediately perform longshore work. Another 800 came from other industries, including AFL-CIO workers who had been laid off from their full-time jobs.

As those workers began to fill the basic longshore jobs, the shortage of skilled workers grew. There were days in recent weeks when employers exhausted the supply of crane and other equipment operators. Without enough skilled longshoremen to lift containers on and off of vessels and yard equipment, terminal operators could not fill all of the gangs they required.

McKenna said that situation should be resolved soon. About 1,000 current casuals will be trained for skilled positions, with the promotion process occurring at a rate of about 200 per month. The PMA and ILWU are finalizing a plan to advertise for 3,000 new casuals. They will be trained as quickly as possible, at a rate of about 150 per week, McKenna said.

In the past, opening the rolls for casual longshoremen turned out to be a chaotic experience with 20,000 to 30,000 applicants storming employment centers in hopes of securing jobs that eventually would lead to full-time jobs paying more than $100,000 a year.

McKenna said the ILWU and PMA are working on the details of a plan that will manage the process and avoid such chaos.

Meanwhile, the hiring of 1,200 temporary workers in recent weeks has had a positive effect on the docks. McKenna said the number of unfilled gangs each day is down to about 20 to 30, which is much less than the 80 gangs that terminals were being shorted in recent weeks.

By Bill Mongelluzzo