Panama pilot-ILWU pact raises spectre of inter-continental disruption
AMERICA's militant dockers' union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has made a pact with the Panama Canal Pilots Union arousing fears of west coast strikes and go-slows that stand to cripple trade to the Americas, Shippingazette reported.
"Our goal is to hold global companies more accountable to workers and their communities," said ILWU international president Bob McEllrath, reported the union's official journal, the Longshore and Shipping News.
While calling the affiliation "major coup" for the ILWU, Pacific Maritime Association president Jim McKenna also said: "It doesn't matter that they're affiliated. It would still be a secondary boycott, an illegal work stoppage."
Slowdowns, rather than strikes, are feared by employers forced to pay ILWU workers despite productivity loss, said Newark's Journal of Commerce. Unrest on the west coast in recent days has produced a wildcat strike from longshoremen at ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett with an attack by ILWU members on a new facility Export Grain Terminal (EGT) near the Port of Longview, southern Washington state.
The vandalism consisted of damage to the facility where the union has demanded rights to work at with 400 longshoremen blocking a BNSF train from entering the EGT and in turn dumping the grain and withholding security officials at the grain terminal.
The alliance troubles east and west coast employers who fear wildcat strikes will paralyse trade on the west coast and the Asia-east coast commerce generated from the canal. Despite contractual details which forbid canal pilots from striking, the concern is that an ILWU boycott of shipping using the canal might have the same results.
"Our goal is to hold global companies more accountable to workers and their communities," said ILWU international president Bob McEllrath, reported the union's official journal, the Longshore and Shipping News.
While calling the affiliation "major coup" for the ILWU, Pacific Maritime Association president Jim McKenna also said: "It doesn't matter that they're affiliated. It would still be a secondary boycott, an illegal work stoppage."
Slowdowns, rather than strikes, are feared by employers forced to pay ILWU workers despite productivity loss, said Newark's Journal of Commerce. Unrest on the west coast in recent days has produced a wildcat strike from longshoremen at ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett with an attack by ILWU members on a new facility Export Grain Terminal (EGT) near the Port of Longview, southern Washington state.
The vandalism consisted of damage to the facility where the union has demanded rights to work at with 400 longshoremen blocking a BNSF train from entering the EGT and in turn dumping the grain and withholding security officials at the grain terminal.
The alliance troubles east and west coast employers who fear wildcat strikes will paralyse trade on the west coast and the Asia-east coast commerce generated from the canal. Despite contractual details which forbid canal pilots from striking, the concern is that an ILWU boycott of shipping using the canal might have the same results.