Cargill defects longshore union offer rejected

Cones mark a new alternate entrance to the Port of Portland's Terminal 5. The Port and Columbia Grain Inc. added a second gate so replacement workers could use one entrance, in the event of a lockout, and employees of other companies could use another to bypass the union picket line.

As Cargill defected, three other owners of Northwest grain terminals rejected a longshore union offer Monday, dismissing it as uncompetitive.

Members of longshore union locals will vote Friday and Saturday on an earlier “last, best and final” offer by the employers’ coalition. The union negotiating team unanimously recommends a vote “no,” said Leal Sundet, an International Longshore and Warehouse Union coast committeeman who heads the team.

“The union is disappointed that the grain merchants apparently have rejected a very fair offer that equalizes the playing field on all points that matter,” said Sundet, in a written statement issued Monday night. “Clearly the foreign-based grain merchants intend to risk the U.S. export market to try to break the union.”

The rejection and the vote recommendation could lead to an employers’ lockout of longshoremen at two terminals in Portland, one in Vancouver and another in Seattle.

Owners of these terminals – Columbia Grain Inc., Louis Dreyfus Commodities and United Grain Corp. – rejected the union offer. They said it would continue to leave them at a competitive disadvantage to terminals in Longview, Wash. and Kalama, Wash., which have contracts favorable to the employers.

The statement by the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association omitted mention of a fourth association member: Temco, a Cargill and CHS Inc. joint venture.

The omission of Temco, which owns Portland and Tacoma terminals, could mean Cargill has reached its own contract deal. A strategy that unions can use is to pick off the weakest member of an employers’ coalition and then move to the next weakest.

Pat McCormick, a spokesman for the grain handlers, declined to comment on Cargill's absence. Spokesmen for Cargill could not be reached Monday evening.

Asked whether Cargill had agreed separately on a contract, Jennifer Sargent, an ILWU spokeswoman, said Sundet’s statement Monday night was the only comment the union would have.

This article originally appeared on The Oregonian’s website, December 17, 2012 at 6 p.m. and was updated December 17, 2012 at 8:17 p.m.