About 105 union supporters, led by Longview-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union local 21, picketed outside Chinook Ventures on Industrial Way on Wednesday morning, protesting the wages the company pays its non-union dock workers.

A Chinook official argued the company pays its 80 to 90 workers fairly, if not as much as union longshoremen. All Chinook dock employees work a full 40 hours, and not all union members can say that, said Barry Oliver, the company’s director of operations.

The informational picket included ILWU members from Portland, Vancouver and Astoria, as well as members from the painters, ironworkers, woodworkers and laborers unions, said Dan Coffman, president of ILWU local 21.

The ILWU has not been approached to unionize Chinook workers, but the union wants the company to pay wages on par with longshoremen, whose base rate is $29.04 per hour, Coffman said.

“He’s not paying our scale to do ship work,” Coffman said.

Oliver said he wasn’t surprised to see longshoremen picketing the facility.

“They’re trying to get work, that’s what they’re trying to do,” he said.

The lowest-paid Chinook employees make about $16 per hour, plus benefits, and more experienced operators’ wages can range as high as $40 per hour, Oliver said. He did not have a breakdown for the company’s dock workers, which comprise 3.7 percent of the workforce.

Chinook Ventures has been cleaning up the 416-acre former Reynolds Metals Co. aluminum smelter site and building a private port and processing facility. The company bought the buildings on the site in 2004 a year after Longview Aluminum Co. declared bankruptcy. Alcoa Co., which bought out Reynolds and sold to Longview Aluminum, retains ownership of the land.

When Chinook finishes cleaning the site, which could take two to three years, the company plans to hire union labor, Oliver said.

Protestors surrounded the front gates of Chinook and gathered in front of two giant piles of coal on the west end of the facility, which the company unloads and stores for Weyerhaeuser Co.

Several picketers held signs protesting the Chinook’s lack of permitting for its restoration work, referring to a $150,000 fine levied last month by the state’s Department of Ecology for failure to obtain permits for the handling of hazardous materials in the air and near the Columbia River.

Dan Serres, conservation director for Columbia Riverkeepers, said he traveled to the picket from Portland because the environmental group is concerned about the permitting problems.

“This is supposed to be a cleanup site, and it doesn’t appear they’re doing that,” Serres said.

Related article:

State fines Chinook Ventures for permitting violations  (March 11)