Hanjin halts Port of Portland service due to labor dispute
South Korean's Hanjin shipping lines on Thursday said it wouldn't call on the Port of Portland for the next week and likely longer as an ongoing labor dispute continues to disrupt production at the port's lone container terminal, Portland Business Journal reports.
South Korean's Hanjin shipping lines on Thursday said it wouldn't call on the Port of Portland for the next week and likely longer as an ongoing labor dispute continues to disrupt production at the port's lone container terminal.
An ongoing labor dispute has caused the Port of Portland to temporarily lose the services one of one of its biggest shipping partners.
South Korean shipping line Hanjin on Thursday decided it would not call on the Port of Portland next week and will likely stay away until the labor fight at the port’s Terminal 6 container facility is resolved.
“I think it’s not so clear at the moment, but until this situation resolves we cannot change our position,” T.H. Kim, Hanjin’s regional manager for Portland and Seattle, said Thursday.
The issue could find a resolution as soon as Friday afternoon when a U.S. District Court judge in Portland holds a hearing on a pair of lawsuits brought by the National Labor Relations Board and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Hanjin moves 2,000 containers per week through Portland, according to Port of Portland Executive Director Bill Wyatt, making its loss one of the biggest casualties so far in the dispute between the longshore union and terminal operator ICTSI Oregon Inc. over which union has the rights to the two to four jobs plugging and unplugging refrigerated container units.
ICTSI contends that it’s bound by a terminal management lease with the Port of Portland that requires the work be done by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers . The longshore union believes that ICTSI, as a member of the Pacific Maritime Association , is bound by a labor pact with the PMA dictating that the work goes to the ILWU.
Though the conflict involves just a handful of jobs, it has nonetheless brought T6 to a near standstill, with trucks lined up outside the terminal’s gates for hours awaiting their cargo. The inability to move cargo through the port has a trickle-down effect throughout the region's economy — from retailers that can't get current product, to manufacturers or farmers that have to incur additional expenses to ship products through another port.
