ILWU working without contract at Northwest grain terminals
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Last February, after a long and fero-
cious fight, International Longshore and
Warehouse Union (ILWU) made deep
concessions in a first-time union con-
tract with EGT, the stand-alone operator
of a new grain export terminal in
Longview, Washington. Now that com-
pany’s unionized competitors — who
negotiate together in the employer
group known as the Pacific Northwest
Grain Handler’s Association (PNGHA)
— want similar employer-friendly
terms in their labor contract with the
union. All of the elevators are owned by
huge multinational corporations, many
of them foreign based.
So in September, when bargaining
began between ILWU and PNGHA
over a new Northwest Grainhandler’s
Agreement, PNGHA demanded more
than 750 concessions, said ILWU
spokesperson Jennifer Sargent in a
press statement. It would have been like
gutting the old contract and starting
over.
The talks ended Dec. 12 with no
agreement, and ILWU reported that
members voted to reject PNGHA’s fi-
nal offer Dec. 21 and 22 by 93.8 per-
cent. At that point, three PNGHA em-
ployers announced they would impose
their terms: Louis Dreyfus Commodi-
ties, a Dutch company that owns grain
elevators in Seattle and Portland;
Marubeni Corp., a Japanese company
that owns Columbia Grain in Portland;
and Mitsui & Co., a Japanese company
that owns United Grain in Vancouver,
Wash.
That provoked a strange kind of
standoff. Beginning Dec. 27, union
longshore workers at these terminals
continued to show up for work, but
without a union contract. They’re free
to strike at any time, but the employers
are also free to replace them, and
they’re reportedly prepared to do so,
with strikebreakers and nonunion tug-
boats reportedly at the ready.
“The men and women of the ILWU
have been exporting grain from these
Northwest elevators since 1934 and in-
tend to continue working despite the
substandard provisions of the em-
... Michigan right to work
(From Page 3
vember ballot measure sponsored by
organized labor that would have
amended the state’s constitution mak-
ing right-to-work laws unconstitu-
tional. Business-backed groups spent
$31.5 million to defeat the measure.
Michigan state Rep. Brandon Dil-
lon, D-Grand Rapids, called the ensu-
ing right-to-work bills “petty retribu-
tion” for the ballot measure, and he
blasted Republicans for fast-tracking
them through the Legislature.
“Good ideas get debated and bad
ones get rammed through with police
protection in a lame-duck Legislature,”
Dillon said.
But state Republicans didn’t have a
lot of time. At the close of the 2012
Legislature, Republicans held 64 seats
in the Michigan House to the Democ-
rats’ 46. The right-to-work bills passed
58-51 and 58-52, respectively, with six
Republicans joining all the Democrats
in opposition.
In the November general election,
Democrats picked up five seats in the
House. It wasn’t enough to wrangle
control of the chamber in 2013, but it
likely would have changed the vote
tally to 57 against right-to-work be-
coming law.
No seats in the GOP-controlled
Senate (26-12) were up in 2012. Law-
makers in that chamber passed the pri-
vate-sector right-to-work bill 22-16.
Senate Democrats disrupted the vote
for several hours by proposing nearly
two dozen amendments and delivering
lengthy speeches prior to the vote. All
12 Democrats walked out before the
vote was taken on the bill impacting
public-sector workers. It passed 22-4.
Gov. Snyder, who is in the middle
of a four-year term, signed the legisla-
PAGE 8
tion just a few hours after it passed the
House.
The law takes effect in March 2013.
ployer’s last offer,” the ILWU said in a
press release. “We are reviewing the
multinational employers’ letter and
we’re disappointed that they haven’t ac-
cepted the union’s invitation to continue
negotiating to reach a fair agreement
with local workers.”
Meanwhile a fourth employer that
was a part of PNGHA— TEMCO (a
joint venture between CHS and Cargill)
— indicated to the union that it’s com-
fortable with the previous agreement,
and reportedly is maintaining the old
contract terms at its terminals in
Tacoma and Portland. TEMCO is no
longer bargaining with PNGHA,
PNGHA spokesperson Pat McCormick
told the Labor Press.
Nearly 3,000 longshore workers are
directly affected by the contract dispute,
including members of ILWU Local 8 in
Portland; Local 4 in Vancouver, Wash-
ington; Local 19 in Seattle; and Local
23 in Tacoma. Members of those locals
historically work under the Northwest
Grainhandler’s Agreement when
they’re dispatched to load grain ships,
and under a separate contract with the
Pacific Maritime Association when
they’re dispatched to load and unload
container ships.
Neither side has said exactly what’s
preventing an agreement, but both say
the dispute is about work rules, not
wages or benefits. PNGHA said in a
press statement that longshore workers
earn $34 to $36 an hour under its offer,
with an additional $30 an hour for ben-
efits.
Workers also make $34 an hour un-
der the EGT contract in Longview. But
McCormick said other provisions in the
EGT contract give it substantial cost ad-
vantages, jeopardizing competitors’
market share.
“The reason this organization has
bargained on behalf of a range of termi-
nals is to avoid those kinds of competi-
tive distortions,” McCormick said.
The EGT contract permits manda-
tory 12-hour shifts, limits control room
operations to managers, and gives man-
agement broad latitude to make new
rules, change methods, and discipline
employees, without requiring input
from workers. It also circumvents the
union hiring hall, allowing the company
to make permanent hires and requiring
the union to maintain a separate list of
“pre-qualified” workers who can be
hired and fired at management’s discre-
tion. And it provides stiff sanctions for
strikes and other on-the-job protest ac-
tions. EGT’s contract also allows it to
use fewer employees to load ships,
PNGHA said, and to use elevator em-
ployees to assist in ship-loading. It gives
the company greater flexibility in
start/stop times; permits pay to be cal-
culated in smaller time increments; and
allows non-bargaining-unit personnel to
perform certain work.
McCormick said PNGHA members
would also be willing to accept the
same terms EGT got in Longview — or
those Kalama Export Company got in
a subsequent contract.
Nearly half of U.S. wheat exports
and more than a quarter of all U.S. grain
exports move through Columbia River
and Puget Sound grain terminals.
The ILWU newspaper The Dis-
patcher reported that the Port of Van-
couver handled 16 percent of all U.S.
wheat exports in 2011, some 3.6 million
tons.
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GOP passes another
union-busting bill
Before adjourning for the year, the
Michigan Legislature also passed a
new emergency manager bill, replacing
one that voters repealed in November.
Organized labor strongly supported
the repeal measure.
The new law contains key provi-
sions from the old law, but includes
more choices for local school districts
and communities deemed by the state
to be in a financial emergency. They
will have the option to choose media-
tion, a state-supervised financial con-
sent agreement, an emergency manager
or Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Under the old
law, bankruptcy was only an option if
an emergency manager determined it
was the only viable option.
Emergency managers have the abil-
ity to reject, modify or terminate col-
lective bargaining agreements. Cities
and school district governing boards
could remove the emergency manager
after one year by a two-thirds vote. Af-
ter an emergency manager leaves, local
officials would be barred from altering
the manager’s spending plans, labor
contracts and ordinances for two years.
Lawmakers attached an appropria-
tion of $780,000 to pay the salaries of
emergency managers and another $5
million for the Treasury Department to
pay lawyers, financial consultants, and
others to work on bankruptcy plans.
The appropriation was a tactical
move by Republicans to make the new
law repeal-proof under the state consti-
tution.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
JANUARY 4, 2013