KOREA'S Hanjin Shipping and Germany's Hapag-Lloyd have dropped weekly calls at Portland and are heading for Oakland until the dockers' union go-slow ends at the terminal run by Manila-based International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI).
KOREA'S Hanjin Shipping and Germany's Hapag-Lloyd have dropped weekly calls at Portland and are heading for Oakland until the dockers' union go-slow ends at the terminal run by Manila-based International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI).
The dispute, over which union members should hold two full-time jobs plugging and unplugging of reefer containers, is now before a US District Court, which will hear the National Labour Relations Board's plea for an injunction to end a go-slow campaign by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) at ICTSI Oregon's Terminal 6, which has resulted in mile-long truck queues.
The ILWU has denied conducting a go-slow and has launched litigation of its own pleading for a court order that longshore union provides the reefer cargo workers, rather than members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), reports the Portland Oregonian.
The ILWU has the support of the employers' bargaining unit, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), against ICTSI Oregon, because they say the Philippine port operator is in contravention of clauses in the coast-wide labour contract which awards the work to the ILWU - clauses that bind port operator as a PMA member.
But the port authority, which has also entered a plea, sides with ICTSI, arguing that their 25-year lease signed last year specifies that the IBEW members will retain the work. ICTSI and port officials contend their lease's job guarantee trumps the ILWU-PMA contract.
