Excerpts from Friday’s Journal of Commerce:
As member of waterfront employers group, ICTSI should have told PMA of IBEW contract, McKenna says
Jim McKenna, president of the West Coast waterfront employers group known as the Pacific Maritime Association, said the lawsuit involving the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Port of Portland “is not a straight line” that will lead to a simple resolution by a single court.
McKenna said that when ICTSI was named terminal operator in Portland more than a year ago, it joined the PMA. McKenna charged that as a PMA member, ICTSI was required to inform the employers’ organization of any contracts it had with non-ILWU workers.
This arrangement seems to imperil PMA member shipping lines that call at Terminal 6 and must use IBEW labor to handle the refrigerated containers.
The PMA and the ILWU, meanwhile, believe their contract, rather than the NLRB or the federal courts, has the final say over labor relations at West Coast ports.