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Economic and dam related articles

Port of Portland Showdown Looms as
Longshoremen Vow to Fight for Jobs

by Richard Read
The Oregonian, August 14, 2012

(Ross William Hamilton) Terminal 6, usually stacked full of containers, has relatively few boxes waiting for shipping abroad, as steamship lines bypass Portland because of labor disputes. Longshoremen plan to fight a decision denying them Port of Portland dock work, even as a federal labor official says he'll take them to court if necessary to enforce it.

The standoff creates the potential for a showdown Wednesday at the Port's Terminal 6, where longshoremen insist two jobs awarded to electricians by the National Labor Relations Board on Monday are theirs. Already, the dispute has triggered three federal lawsuits, an injunction against work slowdowns, milelong truck lines outside the terminal earlier this summer and decisions by shipping lines to bypass Portland.

Leal Sundet, a coast committeeman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said Tuesday in a written statement that the union believes Monday's decision is wrong and plans to take its case all the way to a federal appeals court.

"This is just the beginning of the legal fight," Sundet wrote.

The only way to initiate that appeals process, according to Ronald Hooks, the NLRB's regional director in Seattle, would be for longshoremen to defy the agency's decision.

If longshoremen do that, Hooks said Tuesday, his agency will seek a federal injunction ordering compliance. Agency lawyers are also prepared to bring accusations before an administrative law judge. If that judge ruled against the longshoremen, the union could appeal to the NLRB in Washington, D.C., and ultimately to a federal appeals court.

But at this point, without violating the decision, Hooks said, longshoremen have no avenue for appeal. "The ball is in the longshoremen's court," he said, "as to whether or not they're going to comply."

The issue could come to a head Wednesday as longshoremen work the Sarah Schulte, a 39,000-ton container vessel owned by Germany's Hapag-Lloyd line. All eyes will be on electrical stations at the North Portland terminal where workers perform the equivalent of two jobs plugging, unplugging and monitoring refrigerated containers, known as reefers.

Managers of ICTSI Oregon Inc., which operates Terminal 6 and hires the longshoremen, haven't said whether they'll reassign the disputed reefer work to electricians.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers temporarily ceded the work to longshoremen while the dispute continued.

A lawyer for the electricians' union in Portland said members don't plan to use force to drive off longshoremen. "At this time we have no intent to bring out the Tommy guns and the brass knuckles," said Norman Malbin, the Local 48 attorney. In June, longshoremen took over the reefer work, which electricians had done for 38 years. Behind the two jobs were apparent broader concerns by longshoremen over job losses due to automation. They said their West Coast collective bargaining agreement entitled them to the work, but ICTSI and the Port said their lease agreement secured the jobs for the electricians.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon determined that longshoremen had staged a slowdown July 4. He declined to hold them in contempt of court but issued a preliminary injunction banning slowdowns.

In a separate proceeding, an administrative law judge has been hearing NLRB accusations that Sundet made threats related to the jobs dispute. That trial resumes Monday in Portland.

Shipping lines that bypassed Portland at times this summer because of the turmoil have been calling on Terminal 6 again. On Saturday, longshoremen are scheduled to work the 67,000-ton Hanjin London, owned by South Korea's Hanjin Shipping.

Sundet, in his statement Tuesday, did not specifically say whether the union planned to defy Monday's NLRB decision. He was not available to clarify.

The longshore union has a history of defying authority. Most recently in September, longshoremen bucked a federal judge who ordered them to stop breaking the law as they fought for jobs at a grain terminal in Washington's Port of Longview.

In that case, the judge found the union in contempt of court for blocking a train and storming the terminal. He later fined the union more than $300,000. But the union prevailed when the terminal operator agreed to hire longshoremen after all.


Richard Read
Port of Portland Showdown Looms as Longshoremen Vow to Fight for Jobs
The Oregonian, August 14, 2012

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