Northwest grain contract offer, obtained by The Oregonian, pressures ILWU longshoremen as strike or lockout looms

 Northwest grain contract offer, obtained by The Oregonian, pressures ILWU longshoremen as strike or lockout looms

By Richard Read

The Oregonian, November 28, 2012

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/11/northwest_grain_terminal_opera.html

Northwest grain terminals could see a longshore strike or an industry lockout affecting 25 percent of the nation's grain exports. 

Northwest grain terminal owners preparing for a strike or lockout as soon as Thursday have made a final contract offer that guts many provisions dear to longshoremen. 

A confidential "last, best and final offer" obtained by The Oregonian expires at midnight Wednesday and heavily favors employers who own the terminals that handle 25 percent of U.S. grain exports. 

Gone are longshore perks such as 30 minutes' pay for working six minutes into an hour and compensation while conducting union business at work. Gone are grievance procedures for workers who oppose equipment modernization. 

If the International Longshore and Warehouse Union rejects the contract offer, employers could lock out union workers at six grain terminals in Portland, Vancouver and the Puget Sound. Or the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Associationcould impose the new contract, potentially provoking a strike with longshore protests on water and land supported by outside activists. 

It's also possible the union will cave, or talks will be extended, or current working conditions will merely continue for a while. But a Delaware strike-breaking company that dispatches security officers and replacement workers has been laying groundwork for the employers for at least two months, The Oregonian has learned. 
 

Meanwhile, grain growers extending back to the Midwest anxiously await the fate of the Northwest terminals that send $10 billion of their wheat, corns and soybeans abroad each year. A disruption in grain shipments could cause far more damage than the reduced Oregon economic growth caused last summer by a dispute between Port of Portland longshoremen and electricians. 

River pilots who steer gigantic grain vessels up and down the Columbia and Willamette rivers worry about their safety.Pilot Phillip Massey wrote the Oregon Board of Maritime Pilots recently expressing concern that the longshore union can't control emotions and actions of all demonstrators. 

"Pilots should be able to calmly walk to and from a ship, and perform the already demanding, stressful duties of pilotage," Capt. Massey wrote, "without the debilitating fear for our professional future, our family's well-being, our property, our personal safety, and the safety and efficiency of our ships for years to come." 

The developing standoff comes just four days after longshore-union security officers and the Port of Portland averted a separate strike that would have shut down three terminals handling containers, cars and commodities. 
 

The latest standoff occurs as waterfront labor tensions mount along the West Coast. Striking support workers, and longshoremen honoring their picket lines, shut down the Port of Oakland, Calif., Nov. 20. Members of a longshore local at the Port of Los Angeles struck Tuesday, closing a busy terminal. 

Benefits contracted 

The Northwest grain-terminal talks began well before the one-year labor contract expired Sept. 30. The two sides started far apart. Owners of the grain elevators where longshoremen load ships demanded big concessions similar to those granted earlier this year by union members at a competing terminal in Longview, Wash. 

As negotiations dragged on in Portland, union members continued working without a contract. A federal mediator joined the talks last month, cloaking them in secrecy. The coalition of four companies made its final offer Nov. 16. 

The 38-page detailed draft contract -- see link, at top -- would extend through May 31, 2019, and year-to-year thereafter. 

The proposed agreement, between longshore locals 4, 8, 19 and 23 and Cargill Inc., Columbia Grain Inc., LD Commodities and United Grain Corp., is riddled with deletions and additions. 

Base wages would increase somewhat for longshoremen, who make an average $98,000 a year at the terminals, according to the Pacific Maritime Association. But most other changes favor employers. 

The contract, for example, would allow employers to go to court to end any work stoppages immediately and to recover damages. If three or more stoppages occurred during the contract of more than six years, an employer could quit hiring union members and subcontract all work. 

Some changes resemble the contract at Longview's Export Grain Terminal, where managers expect substantial labor savings. Some longshoremen remain bitter at leaders of the San Francisco-based union for allowing the Longview concessions, which followed violent protests and arrests. 

A spokesman for the Northwest Grain Handlers declined to comment Tuesday on the text of the proposed agreement. A union spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. 

Contract changes would allow: 

* An employer to expand, reduce, alter or discontinue all or any part of its business. 

* Supervisors to perform work during stop-work meetings, health-and-safety disputes and when the union hiring hall can't supply enough qualified longshoremen. 

* Non-union workers to perform control-room work, as well as emergency, environmental or hazardous clean-up projects. 

The draft contract axes provisions reminiscent of organized labor's past: "A scoopmobile operator while operating a scoopmobile shall be allowed 10 minutes relief each half hour. When this grain handler is not offered this relief, a second grain handler will be employed and the two grain handlers shall relieve each other." 

On the brink 

The union played for time Monday, requesting an extension as a spokeswoman said longshore leaders didn't feel talks were at an impasse. The soonest union members could vote on the offer, she said, was Dec. 21 and 22. 

But terminal owners appear primed for a lockout or strike involving about 2,300 longshoremen eligible to work at the terminals. 

J.R. Gettier, chief executive officer of J.R. Gettier & Associates, confirmed this week that he's directing security for the operation. 

"As you know," Gettier said, "there's a blackout of information." 

Gettier said he'd been in Portland for a little more than 60 days. A company brochure outlines a 60-day "timeline to action," with arrival of an advance team five days ahead and arrival of necessary manpower and a command post one day ahead. 

Gettier's company has braved more than 1,000 labor disputes. The company offers an array of services such as protecting perimeters, video-taping picket-line activity and escorting workers and vehicles in and out of strike sites. 

But operators of Northwest terminals that export half the nation's wheat would face challenges keeping grain moving. 

United Transportation Union members operate trains that deliver about 60 percent of Columbia-Snake River wheat to the elevators. They would drive engines as far as picket lines, and their bosses could complete the journeys. 

But tugboat crews who bring about 2,000 barges of wheat a year to the terminals belong to the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots union and the Inlandboatmen's Union. Rob Rich, Shaver Transportation Co. vice president of marine services, said the Portland company's union crews wouldn't cross picket lines. 

"And we would not replace them," with non-union workers in the case of a strike or lockout, Rich said. "We're hoping very strongly there isn't one."