Portland's unsolved inter-union dispute hits river cargo traffic in Idaho

THE dispute between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) over which union members should plug and unplug reefer containers in the Port of Portland has damaged river traffic as far as Lewiston, Idaho, 360 miles upstream.

Korea's Hanjin Shipping and Germany's Hapag-Lloyd has now dropped weekly calls at Portland because of the quarrel over two full time jobs that has caused an ILWU go-slow at the Manila-owned ICTSI terminal, causing mile-long truck queues, court appearances and failed attempts at conciliation by an ex state governor.

Now the quarrel in Portland has disrupted container shipments on the Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia, where shippers avoid barges to escape union trouble and use more costly trucks, said Lewiston port manager David Doeringsfeld.

"A customer may be forced with rolling over their delivery dates because their cargo didn't get loaded, because it's still sitting on docks. There are a fair number of Hanjin containers that are now going to be trucked to the Puget Sound, rather than go on the river," said Mr Doeringsfeld.

More than 1,000 regional companies, including many lentil and pea growers, lumber mills and paper makers in Idaho, may be affected by the inter-union dispute at the Port of Portland, reported the Associated Press, because these businesses rely on Portland's container terminal to transit their products to or from overseas markets.

US District Court judge Michael Simon previously appointed former Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski as the "special master for settlement," but Mr Kulongoski failed. Judge Simon then ordered the ILWU members to stop their go-slow for a 10-day cooling off period.