Following a year of labor disputes and bottlenecks, Port of Long Beach officials say they want to be conservative about the upcoming year’s budget, even paring it a bit over current spending trends. Steven Rubin, the port’s managing director of finance and administration, told commissioners Monday that he is recommending caution even though he expects the pace of business around the harbor to recover from the wintertime slowdowns associated with the labor disputes that took place during the final months of labor negotiations between dockworkers and West Coast terminal operators.
