Spotlight
6 The Journal of Commerce
|
Januar y 20 2020 www.joc.com
ILWU fights landmark jury
award
The fate of a $93.6 million jury award against the
International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU)
and its Local 8 chapter in Portland, Oregon, will
become clearer Feb. 14. That's when US District
Court Judge Michael Simon is set to hear oral
arguments on the union's post-trial motion to
dismiss the award for almost four years of work
slowdowns, or at least reduce it. The unprecedented
award was rendered on Nov. 5 aer a two-week
trial; Simon delayed filing the award to give the
ILWU time to appeal. The union says the penalty
threatens to bankrupt it. The case involves work
slowdowns in a jurisdictional dispute from Aug. 4,
2013, to March 31, 2017, between ICTSI Oregon,
the former operator of Portland's only container
terminal, and ILWU Local 8. At stake were two work
tasks of plugging in, monitoring, and unplugging
refrigerated containers at the port. As a result of
the years of labor disruptions and work slowdowns,
Oregon's only container port has been without a
regularly scheduled liner service since 2017. SM Line
announced late last year it would begin providing
liner service to Portland this month. The ILWU
on Jan. 3 filed a 59-page motion asking Simon to
dismiss the $93.6 million award, charging that the
jury "misunderstood the law, the facts and economic
reality." If the award is not dismissed, the ILWU asked
that the amount be reduced to $3.9 million, based
upon the testimony of the union's expert witnesses
who testified at the trial. The ILWU and ICTSI called
expert witnesses during the trial to assess the
costs to the terminal operator from the job actions,
and the expert witnesses calculated significantly
different amounts. The ILWU wasn't available for
further comment. A spokesman for ICTSI said its
written response to the union's post-trial motion is
due on Jan. 17. Simon, in Portland, is expected to
issue his final ruling shortly aer he hears arguments
from both sides on Feb. 14, and either party will
be able to appeal the decision to the US 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In its post-trial
motion Friday, the ILWU argued that ICTSI did not
present enough evidence to prove that Local 8's job
actions constituted unlawful secondary actions.
The motion argued that ICTSI failed to demonstrate
its main contention, which was that through job
slowdowns, Local 8 was attempting to coerce ICTSI
to pressure the Port of Portland to give the ILWU
jurisdiction over the disputed work tasks. Those jobs
historically had been performed by members of the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
USMCA to speed customs
The new free trade agreement between the United
States, Mexico, and Canada promises greater
efficiencies for shippers moving goods between
Mexico and the US — at least on paper. The proof
will be in follow-up investment needed to improve
actual transportation infrastructure and facilitate
trade at the US–Mexico border. It may become easier
to process goods through customs under the United
States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), but
actual transportation is another matter. Without
investment in facilities and labor to accommodate
expanding US–Mexico trade at or near the Mexican
border, shipments will continue to face costly
transportation delays in times of peak demand and
disruption at the border itself. That's simply a result of
moving increasingly high volumes of goods through
existing crossings at a US–Mexico border vulnerable
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