Port politics starves military, costs growers and energy producers

It wasn't enough that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union targeted Portland container-terminals run by ICTSI Oregon, effectually shutting down Terminal 6 by goading Hapag Lloyd into closing operations which supplied 20% of Portland's container traffic. Hanjin, which began servicing the U.S. Army after World War II, had already abandoned the port taking 80% of T-6's traffic with it, but the shortsighted union stranded inland farmers and backstabbed the military.

The years-long dispute appeared to be the continuation of "a job guarantee sought by members... who want the same protection they say the Port has already included in the lease agreement with ICTSI Oregon, Inc., the company that operates Terminal 6," according to Dan Pippenger, port general manager of marine operations in 2012. After other West Coast ports accepted a five-year contract, the Portland chapter of San Francisco-based ILWU dug-in over the same core demand -- job guarantee. Envy appears to be the underlying issue prompting the strike in that the union wants what the other guy has and is willing to throw a tantrum to get it. This is a problematic characteristic of unions in general, expectation of work guarantees in a free enterprise system that doesn't guarantee anything. Job security is subject to market growth and contraction. That's inherent in conducting business. Given that the ILWU had roots going back to the International Workers of the World, operated by communist functionaries, the disregard for how commerce operates is ingrained. For months, the strike clogged the Columbia River with ships that could neither offload their cargo nor take on goods. Perishables decayed sending producers into financial meltdown. Some of the terminals affected handled mostly grains, dry peas, lentils and garbanzos leaving the inland growers scrambling to find another means to transport product to market. ILWU managed to shut down 90% of Lewiston, Idaho's container traffic and drastically cut the trade at the Port of Umatilla, Oregon.

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Lewiston is America's most inland port lying 395 miles up the Columbia-Snake River system where farmers from Washington, Idaho and Montana rely on the barges to get their crop to market. Because Hapag Lloyd, the main container shipper out of Lewiston, moved operations to Seattle-Tacoma, farmers were forced to contract truck lines to carry containers to port. Closing the cheaper river route cost growers dearly, slashing profit margins that were already slim. ILWU has no interest in growers' troubles, let alone the free flow of product to market. Ironically, this unending standoff has managed to cut 400 of their own jobs from a port that is already challenged by it's location so far upriver container ships have limited access to the facilities -- they must be able to navigate the Columbia channels. Anymore, it's become common for unions to make unrealistic demands that end up gutting jobs and, in the case of Hostess and General Motors, destroy the host, which they call "management." Face it, that's what parasites do and unions have become a leech on the back of the honest workers from whom they extort dues to represent. There are other aspects to this story that have not been adequately reported, the foremost being how this strike cut-off provisions to some of the overseas operations of the U.S. military. The worst tale that was carried back by members of the armed forces was the three month delay delivering food to troops serving in South Korea and, evidently, other outposts. By blocking the terminal traffic, ILWU operators left our men and women on bases in South Korea surviving on ramen, cans of beans and whatever else they could literally dig up. It's criminal that union selfishness would knowingly starve our troops performing an act of selflessness that protects that very same union's freedom to "peaceably assemble." To further the outrage, beyond the attempts by the administration to hamstring the coal industry via EPA restrictions, there arose another roadblock to producers getting coal to market. Environmentalists and Indian tribes, fallaciously charging that transporting coal downriver by barge is a hazard to the ecosystem, have added to the already difficult situation confronting the port of Portland. Brett VandenHeuvel of Columbia Riverkeeper, a deluded self-styled guardian organization of the ecosystem, confirmed his lack of knowledge of the coal industry with this comment: "Coal is dirty every step along the way, from the strip mines in Wyoming and Montana to the transport, and the burning of it in Asia." His coalition has managed to tie-up in court the development of a planned coal export terminal on the Columbia River designed for the purpose of loading coal on internationally bound vessels. The complex is set to utilize property that had been allocated specifically with that intent. The governor of Montana, Matt Mead noted that the effort impeded the free conduct of business. "It's challenging a particular commodity and we think that is interference with interstate commerce." Between the egotistical unions, misguided misinformed environmentalists and pushover government bureaucrats, free enterprise is under fire and our men and women at arms are underfed. Few things are more despicable.