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Source: rabble.ca
Source: Boston Herald
Longshore workers from Oregon and Washington say they get a positive response when they talk about Mitsui’s taxpayer-funded infrastructure upgrades and negative impact on Northwest jobs
VANCOUVER, WA (April 25, 2013) – Washington and Oregon-based longshore workers, locked out of their longtime workplace United Grain Corp. at the Port of Vancouver USA since February 27, are hammering United Grain’s Japanese owner, Mitsui, for profiting from Northwest taxpayer investments and destroying local jobs. Union members have a daily presence at Mitsui-United Grain headquarters in downtown Vancouver, and additional support from longshoremen in Seattle, who hand out fliers in the Puget Sound.
“Northwest taxpayers invest in ports and railroads to create local jobs, but Mitsui has shown that it doesn’t care about Washington’s workers or our communities,” said Cager Clabaugh, President of ILWU Local 4 and third-generation longshoreman. “I came to United Grain as a kid to watch my grandfather load grain, and it’s difficult for all of us to see our local jobs taken away and handed to workers Mitsui imported from Florida and Wisconsin. We pay local taxes and spend locally, but the...
Marubeni owns Columbia Grain in Portland, where members of ILWU Local 8 load grain, and Gavilon is an owner of Kalama Export downriver, where members of ILWU Local 21 do the same.Chinese regulators on Tuesday gave a qualified green light to Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp’s (8002.T) $5.6 billion (£3.67 billion) purchase of U.S. grain merchant Gavilon, imposing stiff conditions that underscore Beijing’s anxiety over food security.
The deal was announced almost a year ago but has been held up for months by Beijing’s close scrutiny of the combined group, which would have a leading role in supplying soybeans and other grains to China. U.S. and European antitrust authorities had already cleared the transaction.
In a posting on its website, the Anti-Monopoly Bureau within the Ministry of Commerce said that the merger may “eliminate or limit competition in China’s soybean importing market.”
As a result, the ministry said Gavilon and Marubeni would be required to maintain separate, independent trading units when selling soybeans to China, with strict firewalls to prevent any exchange of market information. Marubeni would have to buy beans from Gavilon’s vast U.S...
As the Hong Kong dockworkers’ strike for better pay and working conditions enters its fourth week, some analysts believe there could be long-term economic repercussions for the city and port.
Since March 28, lines and shippers have suffered serious delays or been forced to reroute services to avoid calls at facilities operated by Hongkong International Terminals, a subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings and the target of the action.
Whether the current strike is eventually viewed as catalyst for a change of liner strategy or a short-term operational blip remains to be seen. What is certain is that Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man and the owner of HPH Trust, is unlikely to lose out if more cargo starts being diverted from Hong Kong to ports in Southeast China. HPH Trust operates a roster of facilities over the border, including Shenzhen’s Yantian International Container Terminals, one of the main beneficiaries of current boxship diversions from HIT.
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