ILWU Local 21 members protest scab labor at EGT Development
About 100 union dock workers, including union leaders, were arrested Monday afternoon after they tore down a chain-link gate and protested inside the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview.
In one of the boldest labor demonstrations in recent memory, members of the Longview-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 stormed the terminal to protest EGT’s use of non-union labor to handle grain in the testing phase of the new $200 million facility. Authorities said the gate appeared to have been pulled down with a pickup, and protesters blocked EGT employees from working in the terminal.
“We are going to fight for our jobs in our jurisdiction. We have worked this dock for 70 years, and to have a big, rich corporation come in and say, ‘We don’t want you,’ is a problem,” Dan Coffman, Local 21 president, said Monday as he waited for police to issue him a citation.
“We’re all together. We’re all going to jail as a union.”
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