Port of Portland, longshore union continue to trade blame, barbs

PORTLAND — The Port of Portland’s container-terminal operator, ICTSI Oregon, is two weeks from losing nearly 80 percent of its business. Retail and agriculture businesses in the region, along with the shipping companies whose lifeblood is trade between Oregon and Asia, are trying to find cost-effective transportation to stay in business.

Meanwhile, ICTSI and the longshore workers union blame each other for the loss of business and the low productivity that drove away Hanjin Shipping.

After about nine months of contract negotiations that brought West Coast ports from Long Beach,Calif., to Seattle to a standstill, the union and the Pacific Maritime Association — the coalition bargaining on behalf of 29 ports — announced a tentative agreement Friday on a new five-year contract. The resolution shifted the focus from impending economic disaster to clearing the backlog of container ships at the ports, which many estimate could take months. With the resolution, the war of words between West Coast port operators and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union receded.

But in Portland, the relationship between the local longshore workers and ICTSI soured years before the contract negotiations and appears likely to continue to be strained.

ICTSI Oregon chief executive Elvis Ganda blasted local ILWU workers for not working Sunday. Ganda said the longshore workers “engaged in an illegal work stoppage.”

“ICTSI Oregon is disappointed that the ILWU is continuing to purposely disrupt Terminal 6 operations and impact business in the Portland region,” Ganda said Monday.

A Hanjin Copenhagen ship has been sitting at the port for 19 days, and is now waiting to be loaded so it can leave.

The union responded with a heated statement saying that Ganda wasn’t painting an accurate picture.

“ICTSI arbitrarily fired entire crews of workers this week and then complained that no one was working,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Sargent.

The union has long said ICTSI Oregon is poorly managed and is ruining business in Portland with mistakes and bad business plans. ICTSI Oregon, the first U.S. outpost for its Philippines-based parent company, claims the longshore workers have sabotaged the port in an effort to run the company out of town.

The fighting between the two groups continues to weigh heavily on Oregon and Southwest Washington industries that rely on the Port of Portland to trade with Asia.