Factory workers sort through chopped carrots at National Frozen Foods factory in south Chehalis on Tuesday morning.
Now that an agreement has been reached between the longshoremen’s union and maritime association in a months-long showdown, local companies impacted by the situation welcome the news but realize that it still may be some time before any sort of normalcy resumes.
The labor dispute between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association had far-reaching effects, so much so that the White House sent Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to personally intervene. An announcement came Friday night that a deal had been reached.
Two companies with local operations, Northwest Hardwoods and National Frozen Foods, had previously spoken to The Chronicle about the impacts their operations encountered in the face of the shutdown. Leadership of both companies spoke to The Chronicle Tuesday and said they were excited about the development; however, in the short term it doesn’t mean much yet as cargo that piled up for months remains backlogged.
“We’re at the mercy of being able to get the trucks and containers onto the ships,” Brian Narramore, vice
president of human resources for Northwest Hardwoods, said. “As I’m sitting looking out my window here in Tacoma, I can see the cranes and boats, and it looks like they’re moving. But it’s going to take them awhile to work through their backlog.”
Northwest Hardwoods was dealt a severe blow by the dispute, announcing two weeks ago that the company would curtail production at its Centralia, Longview and Garibaldi, Oregon, plants. Because of the large quantity of cargo from various companies that piled up over the duration of the dispute, it has now become a waiting game for the company, which Narramore said hopes to end the curtailment as soon as it can.
“For our people, it’s always hard knowing that while their pay is cut in half, their bills don’t stop,” Narramore said, voicing his sympathy for his employees. “It was pretty energizing to know we’re going to get our people back to work sooner or later.”
While Northwest hopes to get its products out to ship soon, National Frozen Foods will have to work through some lingering effects that, while no layoffs were necessary, still affected the company’s bottom line adversely.
“It cost us some contracts and it canceled some of our orders. It’s very frustrating when something like that costs other businesses money,” National Frozen Foods general manager Pat Sauter told The Chronicle. “While it’s still bitter on my tongue, at least they solved it.”
About 18 to 20 percent of National’s business is overseas, but Sauter said a strong domestic market for frozen vegetables has allowed the company to weather the dispute without having to cut staff. What it might have to cut; however, is the number of acres it harvests from this year. Sauter explained that National negotiates contracts with growers, several on the east side of the state, and determines just how much acreage of specific vegetables it will need to fall in line with what they’re selling and shipping each year.
“We’re trying to keep our inventory lined up with our sales,” Sauter said. “We generally use historical 20-year average yields and work with those figures. It generally works pretty good that way.”
Sauter added that the port dispute could have had a crippling effect on the company had it chosen to import a lot of its packaging materials. The fact the company uses polymers and cardboard materials made in the United States insulated it from a larger loss, Sauter noted.
“We would have lost a lot of our domestic market if we had to bring in a bunch of that stuff,” Sauter said.
Both Sauter and Narramore said that while they’re waiting for the ports’ backlog to clear, the fact the port dispute has ended means that the worrisome days of not hearing anything on any progress are over.
“I think for us, the most important thing is servicing customers and shipping our product,” Narramore said. “Any progress the ports and longshoremen made to that end is beneficial for us.”
Sauter agreed, but with a bit of different tone.
“I’m pretty happy they settled it. I think everyone is relieved,” Sauter said. “I’m just glad it’s done, to be honest.”
