Los Angeles - Union dock workers at Long Beach Harbor are refusing to unload a cargo of frozen meat from an Australian cargo ship that was loaded by non-union workers during a bitter labor dispute last month.
Members of the powerful International Longshoreman's Warehouse Union greeted the Columbus Canada with a 500-person picket line when it arrived in the waters off Long Beach last week, to show solidarity with 1400 Australian stevedores who were fired by the Patrick Stevedore Co. in April.
The ship has been forced to wait with its cargo of “scab meat” off the waters of Long Beach because the ILWU controls every commercial harbor on the West Coast of the United States and Canada.
An independent arbiter ruled last week that the union is contractually bound to unload the cargo, no matter who loaded it, but the dockworkers have stood firm.
A dockworker told the Los Angeles Times: “Shipping and dock operators are trying to take the union out of these jobs in Australia now and last year in England. Next time they may attack the unions here. It's time to take a stand.”
The delay is costing the Columbus Line, which operates the ship, $13, 000 per day plus lost profits. Company officials are considering legal action to break the impasse, but meanwhile, are marooned off the coast of California.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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