Cranes were working to unload ships and trucks were rolling again Friday at the Northwest’s two largest ports after a wildcat sympathy strike Thursday halted all activity there.
Officials at the ports of Tacoma and Seattle said activity was normal Friday morning after Longshore Union workers returned to their jobs.
“It’s business as usual,” said Port of Tacoma spokeswoman Tara Mattina.
The unexpected shutdown Thursday didn’t cause much disruption in Tacoma because no containerships were in port when the strike began. On Friday, three ships arrived.
In Longview, where Longshore Union workers and their sympathizers stormed a new grain terminal early Thursday, members of another union, the Operating Engineers, were loading a grain ship Friday.
The wider job actions followed the Longview incident. According to police, some 500 Longshore union members and supporters charged that terminal, knocking down fences, cutting brake lines on grain cars and pushing a security vehicle into a ditch.
Security guards retreated to a guard shack rather than confront the protesters.
A Tacoma federal judge issued an injunction Thursday against aggressive and unlawful protests but allowed the union to continue with peaceful picketing of the site.
At issue is who will get the jobs loading ships at the new terminal run by EGT, a three-company consortium of American, Japanese and Korean companies. The Longshore Union traditionally has handled such work.
The company, however, abandoned negotiations with that union and hired a Federal Way subcontractor, General Construction, to operate the terminal. General Construction uses members of the Operating Engineers Local 701.
The International Longshore Workers Union has said it didn’t organize the violent confrontation in Longview. The company’s lawyers told U.S. District Judge Ron Leighton, however, that some union members may have been moved to act after ILWU President Robert McEllrath was detained and “roughed up” by police for attempting to block a train serving the grain terminal Wednesday. The ILWU is putting pressure on Operating Engineers Union members, urging them to stay away from the job site in solidarity with the ILWU. In a letter to the engineers, the ILWU reminded them of a 2006 dispute during which the Longshore Union supported the engineers union.
John Gillie: 253-597-8663
john.gillie@thenewstribune.com
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