LABOR

Longshoremen Approve Contract: West Coast workers represented by the powerful International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union approved the three-year labor contract providing base pay increases of 13%. Sources said the contract, which was defeated in previous balloting last month largely due to opposition by workers at the San Francisco and Los Angeles-Long Beach ports, won 62% of the votes in a new election held last week. Official results will be released next week. The new contract, replacing a deal that expired July 1, is between the 8,400-member longshore division of the ILWU and the shipping industry employer group known as the Pacific Maritime Assn. Although union and management officials had insisted that a strike never was a serious possibility, many workers strongly opposed pay equity adjustments in the contract. Meanwhile, the American Trucking Assns. has threatened to file a lawsuit to block provisions of the contract that would give the ILWU authority over more waterfront trucking jobs.