Jury awards $93.6m to former terminal operator at Portland

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Filipino port operator ICTSI’s foray into the US market ended in disaster, after a long-running dispute with a dockers union led to the loss of its main container services and eventually resulted in the closure of Portland’s Terminal 6 and the entire loss of container traffic at the Pacific north-west port. The dispute centred around just two jobs, and whether dockers or electricians should be employed to plug-in reefer containers in the terminal. According to American Shipper, a US court has now found the ILWU dockers’ union guilty of illegal work practices, such as work slowdowns and stoppages, and awarded hefty damages to the terminal operator.