CINCINNATI — A federal appeals court has ruled that a lawsuit a Toledo port operator brought against a dockworkers’ union that arranged for an effective blockade against oceangoing ships five years ago should proceed on its merits.
A 2-1 majority of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that because International Longshoremen’s Union Local 1982 enlisted harbor pilots to keep ships belonging to neutral shipping companies from docking at or departing from the local dock, rather than persuading the ship companies themselves to avoid the port, the action was “plausibly” illegal.
The appeals court remanded the suit back to the U.S. District Court in Toledo, which had dismissed the claim on the grounds that the company, Midwest Terminals of Toledo International, failed to make a claim that Local 1982 had violated the National Labor Relations Act.
Midwest operates Toledo’s general-cargo dock as a stevedore for the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority.
The case arose from a conflict in 2017 and 2018 when Local 1982 sent a member in a boat out into the Maumee River with a picket sign to intercept inbound overseas freighters or discourage such freighters from leaving the Toledo dock. Members of the Lakes Pilots Association, which represents independent ship pilots required by the Coast Guard to be used to guide ships while they’re sailing in U.S. Great Lakes waters, honored the picket.
The union blockade left one ship marooned in Toledo for about two weeks in 2018 until Midwest obtained a Coast Guard waiver of the pilot requirement, and several inbound ships were turned away. Midwest contended that the labor action kept oceangoing ships away for most of the 2018 shipping season until they resumed port calls that October.
In a dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Raymond Kethledge agreed with the district court that Midwest “failed to state a claim” because it did not allege the ILA coerced the pilots’ union to honor its picket.
“The pilots themselves are free to accept or decline assignments as they please; thus, the only question is whether Local 1982 threatened or coerced them,” Judge Kethledge wrote.
But the majority ruled that while the pilots’ union agreed ahead of time to honor the longshoremen’s picket, improper coercion could plausibly be argued in terms of the effect on the ship companies, which “had no say in this matter” and did not “voluntarily” engage in a boycott of Midwest.
First Published July 20, 2023, 1:06 p.m.
