Labor Dispute Keeps Cargo Ship Waiting in Harbor

There’s a big red ship that appears to be anchored permanently in Long Beach Harbor--and it isn’t the Queen Mary.

The Columbus Canada, a cargo ship laden with frozen beef and lamb, sailed into the port from Australia a week ago. But despite plans that would have had the ship in Vancouver last Thursday, the Columbus Canada continues to cool its heels--and cargo.

Why?

“Well, that’s scab meat on that ship,” explains a union dockworker, pointing vaguely in the direction of the Columbus Canada. “Unions don’t touch scab meat.”

The “scab meat” in question was loaded by nonunion dockworkers during a massive labor dispute in Australia earlier this month. In an expression of solidarity with the Australian union, members of the International Longshoremen’s Warehouse Union in Los Angeles have refused to unload the ship, leaving its cargo and crew to wait for some sort of resolution in the waters off Long Beach.

Unfortunately for the Columbus Canada’s crew, the powerful ILWU controls not only the Port of Los Angeles, but also every commercial harbor on the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada. No union workers, it seems, are willing to touch the “scab meat,” and no port on the Pacific coast appears any more likely to accept the ship’s nonunion cargo than Long Beach.

And that leaves the Columbus Canada with nowhere to go.

The saga of the “meat ship” began with the contentious Australian union dispute. Fourteen-hundred Australian dockworkers, called wharfies, were summarily fired by the Patrick Stevedore Co. in April. While the courts debated the legality of their dismissal, nonunion wharfies were hired to continue loading cargo.

One of the ships loaded, at least in part, by nonunion wharfies was the Columbus Canada.

Once the ship left its Australian port, Los Angeles dockworkers and activists tracked its progress and greeted it early last Saturday morning at the Matson Terminal with a 500-person picket line. Trucks expecting to transport the ship’s cargo were turned away, and ILWU workers refused to cross the picket line.

Eventually, Matson Terminals relented, and the Columbus Canada retreated into the outer Long Beach Harbor to await further orders.

“I think there are times in life when you have to take a stand, and this is one of those times,” said Diane Middleton, a San Pedro resident, attorney and longtime supporter of the longshoremen’s union, who was on the picket line.

“If employers try to fire union workers and give those jobs to scabs, then a price will be paid. The price this time is that the Columbus Canada will be a ship without a home until it’s sent back to Australia and loaded by union workers,” Middleton said.

The Columbus Line, which operates the Columbus Canada, seems unlikely at this point to send the ship back to Australia.

Columbus representatives emphasize the union’s responsibility to unload the cargo. Indeed, an independent arbitrator last Saturday found that the union was contractually bound to unload the ship, scab-tainted cargo or no. But union workers refused to abide by that ruling, leaving Columbus Line with little choice but to pursue further legal action, according to company spokesman Doug Webster.

Although he did not know exactly what sort of legal steps Columbus Line is planning, Webster said he expects action early next week, and said the company may seek an injunction forcing the ILWU to unload the cargo.

Officially, the union is taking a wait-and-see position. But individual dockworkers said they’d do everything possible to avoid unloading the Columbus cargo, even if it meant defying legal orders.

“Longshore jobs are good jobs, and the union makes them good jobs,” said a dockworker who asked not to be named. “Shipping and dock operators are trying to take the union out of these jobs in Australia now, and last year in England. Next time, they may attack the unions here. It’s time to take a stand.”

As for the Columbus Canada? It’s still there, costing Columbus Lines $13,000 a day to operate the ship, not counting lost profits.

The crew, marooned as they are in the outer harbor, were unavailable for comment. Onshore company officials also declined to put reporters in touch with the crew.

“The company’s trying to keep a pretty low profile on this one,” Webster said.

The meat makes up only a portion of the total cargo, and is hard frozen and unlikely to spoil any time soon. The crew reportedly has enough supplies to stay at sea for quite a while longer.

Besides, Webster said, “they spend most of their time at sea anyway.”