Google map showing Longview, WA.
Hundreds of union dock workers crowded onto railroad tracks to block a mile-long train from delivering grain to the EGT terminal to the Port of Longview early Thursday morning.
The 107-car train was rerouted to Vancouver following the standoff, which prompted Burlington Northern Santa Fe to indefinitely suspend train traffic to the grain terminal, railroad spokesman Gus Melonas said Thursday. He declined to say whether the railroad will attempt to send rail cars to the terminal again during the labor dispute.
Dan Coffman, president of Local 21, estimated that about 600 people protested from the ILWU, other local labor unions and even some business owners from the area. No vandalism occurred during the protest, he said.
“It’s an attempt to break the union. It’s an attempt to set up shop and not use the ILWU,” Coffman said.
Portland-based EGT is owned by St. Louis-based Bunge North America, Japan-based Itochu Corp. and Korean shipper Pan Ocean STX. Its principal owner, Bunge, reported a $2.5 billion profit for 2010.