Tugboat Unions Stood By ILWU

In our last article on the labor battle in Longview (WV No. 996, 17 February), we reported that the Inland Boatmen’s Union (IBU) was “the one notable and honorable exception” to the failure of union leaders to pledge concrete acts of solidarity with International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 21 in its battle with the EGT grain consortium. The IBU had refused to man the tugs required to take the first grain ship in and out of the Columbia River port of Longview, Washington, where the newly opened EGT grain terminal is located.

After longshore workers approved a contract settlement with EGT, a Workers Vanguard sales team visiting Washington and Oregon port cities learned from a Seattle ILWU official that the Masters, Mates and Pilots (MMP) union organizes tug and barge workers on the Columbia River. WV subsequently confirmed that both the MMP and the IBU man tugs on the river and refused in advance to tow the EGT ship when it called at the grain terminal. The MMP deserves credit for this elementary act of labor solidarity.