State Your Case or Go Away

            Someone breaks into a neighbor’s home, destroys their furniture, threatens them and then when confronted says, “They made me do it, they caused the violence.”  I wouldn’t listen to them.  In my mind, they lost the right to claim an injustice when they broke the law.  But, that is exactly what the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) down in Longview, Washington, is asking everyone to do. 

          The dispute between the longshoremen and the grain terminal operator EGT in Longview erupted into violence last week when some 500 longshoremen broke down gates, smashed windows, damaged cars, cut train brake lines and dumped grain. 

          EGT hired a contractor that is staffing the grain terminal with workers from another union, the Portland-based Operating Engineers Local 70, but the longshoremen believe they have the right to work at the facility.    

          Both the courts and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are avenues of remedy if the Union believes they have been wronged.  The NLRB is the federal agency that administers the National Labor Relations Act and under the Obama administration, has had a decidedly pro-union slant.  A federal judge has already ruled that the union can continue peaceful picketing and in a laughable display of pro-union posturing, the NLRB recently called on the longshoreman to stop “aggressive” picketing.  Instead of using arbitration or the courts, the ILWU has chosen to engage in thuggery. 

          America is a nation of laws.  Does the ILWU expect us to believe that in liberal, union friendly, Washington State and with the most liberal president in the nation’s history, they can’t get a fair hearing of their claims?  The union should call off the thugs and state their case before the NLRB and the court.  If they have any claim whatsoever they will prevail.