A bitter two-year labor dispute that engulfed everyone from Vancouver police and Washington’s governor to state and federal agriculture officials may have ended, as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Northwest grain terminal operators have reached a tentative contract agreement.
In an email to The Columbian Tuesday, Jennifer Sargent, spokeswoman for the Longshore union, said each of the union’s local units will “review the tentative agreement and vote according to their internal rules, with results to be announced Aug. 25.” Terms of the agreement won’t be made public, she said, until union members review and vote on the tentative settlement. Sargent added, “Reduced picket lines will remain” at United Grain and at Columbia Grain in Portland (where
Longshore workers were locked out in May 2013) “while members vote on the agreement.”Added [Grainhandlers’ spokesperson Pat McCormick]: “The parties will mutually release one another from complaints” pending before the National Labor Relations Board.
