Three major grain handling
companies on the West Coast
declared an “impasse” in
contract negotiations and
unilaterally imposed their “last,
best and final” contract offer
on 3,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at four terminals in Oregon and Washington Dec. 27.

The photo above shows tugboats staffed by nonunion crews ready to dock grain ships if a strike occurs. Inset, a new entrance to terminal set up in Port of Portland, Ore., in preparation to bring in replacement workers.

“This is not a lockout,” the bosses said in a public statement. “The companies informed the union that ILWU members are welcome to come to work under the new terms and conditions of employment.”

Union members had rejected the contract by a 94 percent vote several days earlier. The previous contract expired Sept. 30. The union contends the contract contains some 750 conces-sions, Farm Futures magazine reported, including issues of union control over jobs and work rules.

The companies—Marubeni Corp., Matsui & Co. and Louis Dreyfus Commodities—load grain at shipping terminals in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, Wash.

The fourth member of the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association—Temco, a joint venture of Cargill and CHS Inc.—reportedly decided not to unilaterally implement the contract demands and is continuing to negotiate with the ILWU. The four companies move half of all U.S. wheat exports and more than a quarter of all U.S. grain exports through these terminals, much to the expanding Asian market.