From today’s Journal of Commerce:
Operating engineers and SIU to unload ammunition from ship calling at Charleston
The International Longshoremen’s Association may have to take on the U.S. Marines to protect its jurisdiction in the Southeast.
ILA President Harold Daggett said the Marines intend to have workers represented by the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Seafarers International Union unload ammunition from a vessel that will call at the Port of Charleston this summer.
Daggett, a guest speaker at the 35th convention of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in Coronado, Calif., said his East Coast union has traditionally performed that work. Ken Riley, president of ILA Local 1422 in Charleston, added that his members have been specially trained to handle this dangerous cargo.