A3
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2019
Paper mill
reopens and
creates new
paper product
By MONICA SAMAYOA
Oregon Public
Broadcasting
An Oregon paper mill
company has successfully
created a new, nonwood
paper product that uses
agricultural waste to pro-
duce paper.
The West Linn-based
Willamette Falls Paper
Co. made its fi rst nonwood
paper product using pulp
from wheat straw fi bers.
The new product uses
10% of fi bers which are col-
lected from the shaft of the
wheat and broken down into
microscopic fi bers, which
are then used to make both
coated and uncoated paper.
“We want to be the fi rst
coated paper mill to offer
nonwood grades made in
the U.S. and sourced with
local agricultural waste, in
this case, straw,” said Phil
Harding, the director of
technology and sustainabil-
ity at the mill. “Our long-
term focus is sustainable
paper-making, and success-
ful trials using nonwood
raw materials is another
step toward this goal.”
The 130-year-old mill
reopened two months ago
after it closed two years
ago.
The company originally
planned to hire 85 employ-
ees at the restarted mill but
now employs 120, accord-
ing to Harding.
Additional machine and
press trials are ongoing to
refi ne the paper properties
and specifi cations. How-
ever, early outcomes from
press room trials and initial
customer feedback has been
very positive.
According to Harding,
the company used local
wheat as a way to help
reduce the carbon footprint
of shipping and import-
ing materials from other
locations.
“We are delighted to at
once create a novel product
offering while also reducing
agricultural waste,” Hard-
Ian K. Kullgren/The Oregonian
Willamette Falls Paper Co. as seen from atop the hydroelectric dam near the east bank of the Willamette River.
ing said.
The mill has been work-
ing with Trinseo, its key
supplier on developing
paper grades that will have
similar characteristics to the
mill’s standard grades.
“Finding
innovative
ways to increase the use
of sustainable materials is
a critical focus for us, the
industry, and modern soci-
ety, so we’re thrilled to con-
tinue our support in their
development and commer-
cialization of this new prod-
uct,” Trinseo’s Todd Crook
said.
The mill is expected to
start making its new prod-
uct available to customers
by the end of November.
The Oregonian contrib-
uted to this report.
Port of Portland gets $93.6M over workers’ unlawful labor practices
By MAXINE BERNSTEIN
The Oregonian
A federal jury awarded
$93.6 million to the former
operator of the Port of Port-
land’s container terminal, fi nd-
ing the dock workers union
sabotaged shipping traffi c and
caused productivity to plum-
met through years of labor
slowdowns and stoppages.
The
Philippine-owned
ICTSI Oregon, which signed a
25-year lease in 2010 to oper-
ate Terminal 6, left the port
in March 2017, idled by the
labor strife it says the Interna-
tional Longshore and Ware-
house Union and its Local 8
chapter encouraged.
That marked the effec-
tive end to the frequent use
of Oregon’s only container
terminal accessible by large
ocean-crossing cargo ves-
sels. Terminal 6 now mostly
runs as a truck-to-train opera-
tion with containers unloaded
from trucks onto trains bound
for the ports of Tacoma and
Seattle.
The verdict reached Mon-
day followed a two-week civil
trial before U.S. District Judge
Michael H. Simon in Port-
land and years of protracted
disputes in court and before
the National Labor Relations
Board.
“The ILWU went too far.
They have given that mid-
dle fi nger to the port, to the
National Labor Relations
Board and to its own com-
munity, and you are here to
hold them accountable,’’ ICT-
SI’s lawyer Amanda T. Gam-
blin told jurors in her closing
argument.
The union “beat ICTSI into
the ground,’’ Gamblin said.
But the union’s lawyers
said declines in productiv-
ity at Terminal 6 resulted
from a range of factors: mar-
ket forces, geographic lim-
itations of the port situated
so far inland with a shallow
river depth for big vessels
and dismissive management
that caused a demoralized
workforce.
“ICTSI is trying to use
the ILWU as its piggybank,”
attorney Susan J. Harriman
argued on behalf of the union.
“It decided to make its money
from this lawsuit, instead of
making Terminal 6 a success.’’
The international union
and its Portland chapter had
been clashing for years with
the terminal operator, starting
shortly after the port hired the
company to run its container
terminal.
In 2012, longshore work-
ers claimed ICTSI Oregon
should give them the jobs
plugging, unplugging and
monitoring refrigerated con-
tainers, taking the so-called
“reefer’’ work away from an
electricians union.
The large marine terminal
on the Columbia River, about
100 miles inland from the
Pacifi c Ocean, was equipped
to unload and load seagoing
vessels and to store incoming
and outgoing containers while
awaiting shipment by land or
sea.
The “reefer” containers
have electrically powered
refrigeration units attached to
safely ship perishable agricul-
tural commodities and other
goods all over the world.
Workers had to plug the con-
tainers into electrical recepta-
cle banks at the terminal and
periodically check to make
sure they were kept at the
proper temperatures.
The terminal operator
argued that the union delib-
erately disrupted work to get
the company to grant long-
shore workers the sought-after
“reefer’’ jobs: truckers driving
at a walking pace, workers
taking extensive time loading
containers and others showing
up late, delaying crane work-
ers from getting started.
A judge already deter-
mined that the union was
guilty of unlawful labor prac-
tices from May 21, 2012,
through Aug. 13, 2013, to get
the work on the refrigerated
containers.
The eight-member jury
was asked to decide if those
unlawful practices continued
through March 2017 and if
damages should be awarded
for losses suffered.
Jurors found the unlawful
labor practices did continue
and awarded the damages
after deliberating for about
3 ½ hours. It also found that
the international union and
local chapter were jointly lia-
ble, with ILWU responsible
for 55% of the damages, and
Local 8, the other 45%.
According to testimony,
Leal Sundet, one of the lead-
ers of the international union,
had threatened the port oper-
ator’s chief executive offi -
cer Elvis Ganda on May 21,
2012, that “I am the guy who
can (expletive) you badly”
and that ICTSI “would pay
the price” if it didn’t give the
refrigerated container work to
the longshore workers union.
Three days later, Local
8 President Jeff Smith
demanded ICTSI assign the
dockside refrigerated con-
tainer jobs to his workers and
if not, the union would put
ICTSI out of business and run
every Hanjin container out of
Portland, according to ICT-
SI’s lawyers.
ICTSI sought damages of
between $97 million and $135
million for its estimated oper-
ating losses.
The company shut down
its container operations at Ter-
minal 6 on March 31, 2017,
and laid off much of its staff
after major shipping compa-
nies pulled out of Portland.
South Korea’s Hanjin Ship-
ping, the terminal’s largest
customer, and Hapag Lloyd
America, its second-largest
customer, ceased using the
terminal in the 2015. The two
accounted for about 98% of
the terminal’s business.
The union argued that the
company’s estimated dam-
ages were based on faulty
assumptions and infl ated
numbers and urged jurors
to award no more than $1.3
million.
Harriman, the union’s law-
yer, said its workers “wanted
to succeed but they were
treated like donkeys and belit-
tled and fi red without cause.
…They helped build Termi-
nal 6 and they literally broke
their backs trying to make Ter-
minal 6 a success.’’
She said any job actions
were related to collective
GAME MEAT PROCESSING
Debbie D’s will be at
Cash & Carry in Warrenton
at 10:00 a.m. every Saturday
to pick up and deliver
meat for processing.
bargaining for a new union
contract, which was law-
ful. “Labor and employment
practices were driving slow-
downs, not reefer work,’’ she
told jurors.
After the jury returned the
verdict, Harriman urged the
judge to formally delay enter-
ing the judgment.
The union intends to
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argue that the damage award
would impose a heavy fi nan-
cial burden with serious con-
sequences, including possi-
bly bankrupting the longshore
workers union, she said.
The judge allowed both
sides to submit briefs on the
matter and said he’d wait until
next Tuesday before entering
a judgment.
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