The National Labor Relations
Board has ruled that disputed jobs hooking and unhooking refrigerated containers
at the Port of Portland’s Terminal 6 should go to union electricians, rather than
a longshore workers union that had tried to commandeer the work.
In a five page decision
issued Aug. 13, the three-member NLRB panel said that after reviewing all the information
presented before it, it believed that the work in question should be performed by
members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, not the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union.
The dispute dates back to
2011, when ICTSI Oregon entered into a 25-year agreement with the port to operate
the dock at Terminal 6, and chose to honor a collective-bargaining agreement between
the port and the District Council of Trade Unions, of which the IBEW is a member.
The IBEW has performed the
work since operations began at the terminal in 1974.
The ILWU, however, began
to claim that under the collective bargaining agreement between the ILWU and the
Pacific Maritime Association – of which ICTSI is a member – longshoremen should
be doing the work.
“After considering all the
relevant factors, we conclude that employees represented by IBEW are entitled to
perform the work in dispute,” the NLRB’s decision reads in part. “We reach this
conclusion relying on the factors of collective-bargaining agreements and employer
preference and past practice. We note that the factor of employer preference, although
not itself determinative, is entitled to substantial weight.”
To that point, the board
specifically cited the testimony of the Port of Portland’s chief commercial officer,
Sam Ruda, who said officials insisted during negotiations with ICTSI that “work
jurisdictions be maintained” when the new terminal operator took over the facility.
In June, a noticeable drop
in productivity began, coinciding with the escalation of labor dispute. ICTSI Oregon
and other stakeholders labeled a work slowdown by ILWU Local 8. Although the union
denied it was engaging in a slowdown, a federal judge in July issued an indefinite
injunction banning slowdowns pending the results of the NLRB investigation.
The labor issues had resulted
in fewer vessel calls at the terminal the past two months, although two shippers,
Hanjin and Hapag-Lloyd, resumed service at the port after having bypassed Terminal
6 multiple times earlier in the summer.
The ILWU has yet to confirm
whether or not it plans to appeal the NLRB decision.
