Portland terminal says ILWU not supplying labor

Union reponds that ICTSI is blaming others for its own mistakes.

   The operator of Port of Portland, Oregon’s only container terminal, said despite the signing of a tentative contract with the Pacific Maritime Association, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union are continuing to snarl operations at its facility.
   ICTSI Oregon Inc., which operates Terminal 6 in Portland, said “we are currently not seeing a good faith effort by ILWU to bring productivity at Terminal 6 to acceptable levels. Additionally, the ILWU is failing to provide sufficient labor for needed container vessel and barge operations at the terminal.
   “For example, the PMA today found that the ILWU engaged in an illegal work stoppage by failing to provide labor on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015, for the Hanjin Copenhagen,” it added.
   The decision was made by a PMA area arbitrator. Although the new contract will revise the arbitration system between the ILWU and PMA, the ILWU said the arbitration system in place under the previous contract remains in effect until the new agreement is ratified.
   Hanjin announced earlier this month that it would end its liner service to Portland on March 9.
   ICTSI said “the ILWU is continuing to purposely disrupt Terminal 6 operations and impact business in the Portland region.”
   Jennifer Sargent, an ILWU spokeswoman, called ICTSI’s statements “self-serving and inaccurate. ICTSI arbitrarily fired entire crews of workers this week and then complained that no one was working. The fact is, ICTSI is failing to thrive in the United States because of its own managerial shortcomings, and desperately trying to blame others for its own mistakes.”
   She charged “ICTSI’s poor decisions and rogue attitude have chased away two major customers in Portland and alienated their peers in the industry. If ICTSI spent as much time improving operations as they spend complaining to the media, our region would have a more productive container terminal by now.”
   On Sunday, operations were disrupted at the Port of Oakland in California because of a dispute between labor and management about break time. They resumed Sunday evening.
   On Monday there were no work stoppages, but Mike Zampa, a Port of Oakland spokesman, said there were “limited vessel operations during Monday day-shift due to shortage of experienced crane operators. Full operations Monday night shift. Expect full operations today, too.”