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Locked Out: Members of Local 4 are on the picket line after being locked out by Mitsui-United Grain in Vancouver, WA. Members of ILWU Local 8 are also locked out at Marubeni-Columbia Grain in Portland. Photo by Jared Moultrie, ILWU Local 4 member.
Longshore workers in Oregon and Washington are continuing their round-the-clock fight for a fair contract at grain terminals owned by some of the world’s largest grain corporations nearly a year after negotiations began last August. ILWU workers have exported a significant portion of the nation’s grain through Northwest ports under a collective bargaining agreement that dates back to the 1930’s.
Of the four employers in the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association, three are waging an attack on the ILWU workforce that have made them profitable in the region. Two Japanese-owned companies, Mitsui-United Grain in Vancouver, WA, and Marubeni-Columbia Grain in Portland, have locked out ILWU members under dubious conditions and imported scab replacement workers. A third company, French-owned Louis Dreyfus, operates grain export terminals in Seattle and Portland. All three foreign companies imposed a concessionary contract in...