PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A bitter and occasionally violent
two-year labor dispute at Northwest grain terminals ended with a tentative deal
reached in the middle of the night.
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service said the
International Longshore & Warehouse Union and Pacific Northwest grain
companies reached the agreement Monday shortly before midnight. If ratified,
the agreement ensures that U.S. grain exports proceed without disruption during
harvest. Details of the deal were not divulged.
"Clearly the parties maintained strongly held competing
views on the many issues that divided them during this process. In the end they
found a way," said Scot L. Beckenbaugh, acting director of the mediation
agency based in Washington, D.C.
ILWU spokeswoman Jennifer Sargent confirmed the tentative
agreement and said reduced pickets lines will remain at two terminals until the
results of the contract vote are announced Aug. 25. Pat McCormick, a spokesman
for the grain companies, said he needed to be briefed on the deal before making
a statement.
More than a quarter of all U.S. grain exports move through
nine grain terminals on the Columbia River and Puget Sound.
The conflict started after a labor contract expired Sept.
30, 2012. It began to boil three months later, when United Grain and two other
Pacific Northwest grain terminals declared an impasse and enforced a contract
that included new, management-friendly workplace rules.
United Grain, based in Vancouver, Washington, imposed a
lockout in February 2013, after determining a worker shoved a metal pipe into a
conveyor and poured sand into a gear box. Longshoremen said the response was
extreme and illegal, and they established a picket line at the Port of
Vancouver.
Ronald Hooks, regional director of the National Labor
Relations Board in Seattle, later determined that United Grain unfairly locked
out the workers. The company disputed the finding. A National Labor Relations
Board administrative law judge had been scheduled to hear the matter.
Separately, Hooks said locked-out picketers violated labor
law by engaging in threats and violence in the early months of the lockout. For
example, he said, picketers threw rocks at a security officer and blinded truck
drivers with spotlights. An administration law judge was also scheduled to hear
these claims.
The agreement comes shortly after U.S. Department of
Agriculture grain inspectors refused to cross the picket line into the United
Grain terminal, which has the largest storage capacity of any West Coast
grain-export facility.
United Grain requested federal grain inspectors because
Washington state inspectors stopped entering the terminal, citing safety
concerns. The state inspectors took that step after Gov. Jay Inslee ordered
state highway patrol officers to stop providing security for them.
Federal law requires inspections for grain exports, so the
refusal to cross the picket line crippled shipments from that major terminal
and put pressure on the owner to reach a deal.
"United Grain Company has been notified that state
grain inspectors will resume inspections immediately," Inslee said in a
statement Tuesday.
The contract dispute initially involved six terminals that
operate under a single collective bargaining agreement with the ILWU: United
Grain, based in Vancouver, Washington; Columbia Grain, based in Portland,
Oregon; Louis Dreyfus Commodities, which has grain elevators in Portland and
Seattle; and Temco, which has elevators in Portland and Tacoma, Washington.
Temco broke away from the alliance in December 2012 and
reached a deal with the union.
Columbia Grain, based at the Port of Portland, locked out
workers in May 2013.
The dispute was primarily about workplace rules. The grain
companies have said that they are at a competitive disadvantage because the
longshoremen at their terminals had more favorable rules than those in the
Washington cities of Kalama and Longview.
Early contract offers from the grain handlers would have
taken away some perks and grievance procedures.
Source: NJ
Herald
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