Steve Cotton
Commenting on developments in the Port of Vancouver, Washington, USA, ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) acting general secretary Steve Cotton said:
“The lockout of workers by Mitsui-United Grain will soon be entering its tenth week. The company choice of this tactic over honest negotiation has gained them nothing except local and international opprobrium.”
He continued: “The recent spectacle of 12 carloads of police arriving to oversee a peaceful protest outside the Mitsui-owned United Grain Corporation terminal shows how the company’s intransigence is harming the local community – and the company’s reputation. If Mitsui insist on playing with fire they shouldn’t expect the Vancouver police department to have to don asbestos gloves on their behalf.”
He concluded: “This situation demands a solution. The company can no longer evade that fact.”
For more details of international trade union support for the locked out dockworkers, please see www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=1795.
