Thursday, August 14, 2014
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United Grain and ILWU make tentative deal, grain inspections resume
Late Monday, United Grain Corporation and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union made a tentative agreement to resolve a two-year-old labor dispute, and state grain inspections resumed at the Port of Vancouver, Washington, as of 1:10 p.m. Tuesday.
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service announced the unsettled deal Tuesday, saying it was reached just before midnight Monday in talks between the ILWU and the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association. Details have not been revealed and union members must ratify the agreement before it goes into force.
Pat McCormick, spokesman for the Grain Handlers Association, said he expects union pickets — which the ILWU has maintained since February 2013, when United Grain locked out union workers from its facility — will continue until the union ratifies the tentative agreement.
In Vancouver, the announcement means normal export operations at United Grain Corp. at the Port of Vancouver may proceed. United Grain, the West Coast's largest grain elevator, has virtually shut down since July 7, when the state Department of Agriculture stopped providing grain inspections in response to threats from demonstrators.
The agreement also would apply to Louis Dreyfus Commodities, which operates grain facilities in Portland and Seattle. If finalized, it should ensure that U.S. grain exports will proceed without disruption as harvest approaches.
Jennifer Sargent, spokeswoman for the Longshore union, said in an email that each of the union's local units will "review the tentative agreement and vote according to their internal rules, with results to be announced Aug. 25." Terms of the agreement won't be made public, she said, until union members vote on it.
The resumption of inspections soothed worries of Pacific Northwest wheat growers, grain elevator owners and foreign buyers. Washington farmers are completing the wheat harvest while Montana's harvest has peaked. Wheat was being sent only to ports in Portland and Longview to be inspected and growers worried a backup would occur.
Grain inspections had been halted for more than 30 days and drew national interest because other states, including Montana, also use the Port of Vancouver to export wheat. Montana wheat growers could have lost a portion of their crop.
The inspections stopped after Gov. Jay Inslee said Washington State Patrol troopers would no longer escort state grain inspectors, noting that negotiations between United Grain and the union had not been productive.
For more of the Columbian story: columbian.com
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