The court case found the local chapter of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union had sabotaged shipping traffic through years of labour slowdowns and stoppages… Portland has not had a container terminal operator working at its port since ICTSI left.
I know that the ILWU has a different perspective, but does this mean Terminal 6 has been sitting basically unused since March 2015? What a waste.
I think the car ships have been using it, both import and export. I see new cars parked there and have seen car ships tied up there.
Union members were accused of timecard fraud as well at Columbia grain.
I am not anti-union, but from my experiences on the Columbia River, these longshoremen were generally pathetic. From grandstanding about who was, and was not allowed to work the ships cranes, to a gang of eight hung-over dimwits watching two people work. The only thing you could count on was one of them bragging about how much money they rake in year after year.
Perfect example of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
If I remember correctly SeaLand years back stopped for awhile, or cut back on the service through Boston due to the longshoremen issues they were having.
The case was dismissed.
Similar situations happened in the UK in the 1960s and 70s. The stevedores refused to accept that things changed when pallets and containers were introduced. They insisted on full gangs attending ships with side gates and forklift to forklift handling of pallets, or containers being lifted by shore gantry cranes.
Ships started to call at continental ports, with the cargo being carried by trucks to UK destinations.
When the UK ports had effectively been killed, the Union bosses moved to Australia where the same options of transshipment didn’t exist but the same culture existed in the unions.
Same thing still happens in much of the U.S.A. to this day. I can watch a German stevedore gang move containerized cargo at twice the efficiency of a U.S. port with half the people on the pier.
I don’t fault people for wanting to make a decent living, but the ILA really makes it hard to stand on their side when you see some of the antics they pull.
The longshoremen have been taking the food right out of Mariner’s mouths for far too long.
Limited container service returning to terminal 6 in Portland. Cool news for Oregon businesses.