The Los Angeles Times reported today that a mob of hundreds of International Longshore and Warehouse Union members, alerted by a posting on the Union’s Facebook page, overpowered police and attacked a train carrying grain to a new storage facility in Longview, Washington. According to the article, the union members cut brake lines on the train, dumped cargo and held the outnumbered law enforcement personnel at bay while they attacked the grain terminal. The Union had already been subject to a temporary restraining order after the NLRB found that it had engaged in illegal activities, including dumping a bag of manure on the site from an airplane. The work at the grain terminal had been assigned by the operator to the General Construction and Operating Engineers Local 701, which has been criticized by the local branch of the AFL-CIO for accepting the work. The ILWU claimed to have been unaware of what had occurred at the terminal, saying it was looking into the matter. Union violence is apparently not a thing of the past, at least in the Northwest. Whether this incident will have any effect on the NLRB’s case against Boeing for electing to expand in another area of the country rather than Washington State remains to be seen.
