Published Oct. 3: If the lawsuit is not heard until next April, EGT will have to continue to fill the facility with grain and begin exporting the grain to Asia. That will entail a good deal of risk as well as costly security efforts.
Furthermore, the ILWU in the past has been able to call upon its close connections with dock worker unions in Asia and Australia to elicit sympathy job actions against vessels arriving from the West Coast.
Merrilees was coy in his analysis of what might happen when the first vessel loads. His response was, “The ILWU has a long history of solidarity and mutual support and good international relations.”