Sundet: ILWU has offered to transload cargo from at-risk containers

A Nov. 2 article in the Journal of Commerce called “West Coast Isolating Vietnam Reefer Containers” reported that:

The ILWU in the past few days refused to work vessels at two terminals in Oakland and a terminal in Seattle. The ILWU demanded a complete history of the containers on the vessel, but employers offered information only on those containers that had been in Vietnam.

In a statement Tuesday, the ILWU said it is taking steps to segregate potentially faulty containers and prevent them from leaving the terminals. “It’s impossible to know which containers might pose deadly combustion hazards just by looking at them,” said Leal Sundet, representative of the ILWU’s Coast Longshore Division.

He said the ILWU has offered to transload cargo from potentially dangerous containers before they leave the terminals.