Company says employees will be out of work until the mills are back in use.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
The work slowdown at the ports in Tacoma and Seattle have slowed output to the point that the company says it must temporarily shutter its export department that ships paper products to Asia.
Weyerhaeuser says employees will be out of work until the mills are back in use, according to OregonLive.com:
The 20,000-member International Longshore & Warehouse Unionhas been negotiating since May a new contract with the Pacific Maritime Association, comprised of 29 West Coast port operators, including the Port of Portland. The previous six-year contract expired on July 1.
The port operators called for a federal mediator to intervene in the negotiations in December, revealing that the ILWU members and the Pacific Maritime Association differ in how close they are to agreeing on terms.
In other port news, the Oregon Transportation Commission is accepting public comment on how $4 million of nonhighway money should be spent.
The Portland Tribune reports that the group is expecting a large turnout of citizens who will continue the Northwest coal-to-Asia debate.
The commission, on a 3-2 vote in August, rejected the port’s request for $2 million for the project at Berth 2. The original application listed a $3 million match from Ambre Energy, the Australian company proposing to ship coal mined in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. The coal would come via rail to Boardman, where it would be loaded onto barges for Port Westward and then onto ocean-going ships.
The commission approved $40.3 million divided among 36 other projects, including $2 million for renovation of another dock at the port. That amount would be matched by $4.6 million from Global Partners, which owns an ethanol plant next to Berth 1, to ship oil brought by train from the Bakken field of North Dakota for refining elsewhere on the West Coast.
