Concession bargaining talks break down between ILWU longshore union and Northwest grain terminal operators-ILWU Sundet blames "foreign based employers" for wanting even more concessions

 

Concession bargaining talks break down between ILWU  longshore union and Northwest grain terminal operators-ILWU Sundet  blames "foreign  based employers" for wanting even more concessions
Talks break down between ILWU  longshore union and Northwest grain terminal operators

By Richard Read
 
March 22, 2013
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/03/talks_break_down_between_longs.html
 

The first contract talks in three months between grain companies and the West Coast longshore union broke down Friday, and negotiators canceled a session they had planned for Saturday.

Representatives of three grain terminal operators declined to discuss an agreement the union recently reached with Temco, a competing company. The three companies -- United Grain Corp., Columbia Grain and Louis Dreyfus Commodities -- instead wanted union proposals based on a final contract offer they made in November.

"The three foreign-based employers refused to even discuss the Temco agreement, and talks broke down," said a statement issued Friday by theInternational Longshore and Warehouse Union. Union leaders like to play up the foreign ownership of the three companies, while a spokesman for the businesses stresses local management of the Northwest export terminals.

United Grain locked out longshore workers Feb. 27 from its Vancouver terminal, accusing a union official who worked there of sabotaging equipment. Longshoremen had been working at the plant under terms of November's final offer, which union locals rejected in a December vote. Employer-friendly terms of that final offer continue in effect at Columbia Grain and Louis Dreyfus.

Friday's breakdown continues a standoff in which locked-out union members picket United Grain and, for now, grudgingly accept the terms imposed at Columbia and Louis Dreyfus. The three companies are members of the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association, which was bargaining in tandem until Temco, the fourth member, defected to make its own deal with the union.

Pat McCormick, a spokesman for the three companies, said they want contracts with working conditions equivalent to those the union accepted at competing terminals in Longview, Wash., and Kalama, Wash.

"We are disappointed that the union presented us with a proposal less favorable than their last proposal of Dec. 12 -- one which we previously advised was unacceptable," said a statement released by the three companies. "It continues to be our position that we need parity with our competitors in Longview and Kalama."

But union Coast Committeeman Leal Sundet, co-chair of the union's negotiating committee, sees it differently.

“The foreign employers refused to consider any proposal from the union other than complete acceptance of the employer’s deeply concessionary ‘last, best and final’ offer that members rejected by more than 90 percent in December,” Sundet said in a written statement Friday. “That’s not negotiating; it’s outright bad faith bargaining.”