The U.S. Coast Guard will escort the first ship coming to the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview this month, and the Occupy movement and local labor groups say they are planning to greet the vessel with a massive protest.

EGT officials say they have not scheduled a date for the ship’s arrival. The freighter is expected to haul thousands of tons of grain to Asia, but opposition groups are already marshaling their forces to support the lengthy protest by union dock workers at the grain terminal.

“We just want to swell the population of the city to show there are people behind us,” said Jeff Washburn, president of the Cowlitz Wahkiakum Central Labor Council, which passed a resolution calling for a protest this week.

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In another sign of the #Occupy movement flying off the tracks of relevancy, the movement’s next major campaign – a planned shutdown of shipping ports on the entire west coast – is explicitly opposed by International Longshoreman’s Union, the union that the shutdown is purporting to support. However, statements from an Occupy leader indicate that the Union may be bluffing in order to avoid further legal trouble in an ongoing dispute they have with a Portland grain export facility.

The website WestCoastPortShutdown.org says that the planned direct action on December 12^th is being coordinated by at least ten different Occupy movements, including the recently decamped Los Angeles, Oakland and Portland movements as well as scrawny groups like Occupy Oxnard. More specifically, the Port Shutdown is being spearheaded on by Occupy Oakland and activist / artiste Boots Riley.

The site lays out some big goals…

On December 12, the occupy movements in different cities will stage  mass mobilizations to march on the ports, create community pickets, and effectively shutdown the hubs of commerce, in the same fashion that Occupy Oakland shut down the Port of Oakland on November 2nd, the day of our general strike.

And their raison d’être is, as always, ‘solidarity with the 99%.’

We present this call to you because we believe it is time the occupation movement begins to work together to carry through coordinated, pinpointed actions. We want  to disrupt the profits of the 1% and to show solidarity with those in the 99% who are under direct attack by corporate tyranny.

But apparently the anarchy loving Occupy movement didn’t clear all of this with the heads of the unions theey are supposed to be in solidarity with. A Portland Trubune article headlined Unions: We don’t support Occupy port shutdown and subtitled Longshoremen say they will not participate in planned Dec. 12 West Coast protest appears to lay out a case for conflict between Occupy and the ILWU.

“We support the goals of the Occupy protesters but we are not supportive or participating in the shutdown of the West Coast ports,” says Jeff Smith, president of the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union Local 8. The union represents workers who load and unload ships at the port, and also move freight in and out of it.

And the same article later quotes ILWU Local 8 president Smith saying succinctly…

“This is a third-party strike. We have to go to work,” says Smith.

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From the Associated Press:

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire is going to mediate talks in a teachers strike that has already canceled seven days of school in Tacoma.

Gregoire spokeswoman Karina Shagren says the two sides were unable to reach a deal Wednesday afternoon and are now traveling to Olympia to continue discussions.

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You may recall that there has been an e-strike going on at the Huffington Post since March. In union parlance, a strike means, if you honor unions, you should not cross a picket line—even an e-picket line.

According to the Newspaper Guild (part of the Communications Workers of America):

In addition, we are asking that our members and all supporters of fair and equitable compensation for journalists join us in shining a light on the unprofessional and unethical practices of this company.

Just as we would ask writers to stand fast and not cross a physical picket line, we ask that they honor this electronic picket line.

As a reminder, the company with the “unprofessional and unethical practices” that the union is referring is Huffington Post—Arianna Huffington’s website that AOL purchased in a $315 million boondoggle—you know, the one that “unfairly” exploits bloggers and children as young as 13.

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As the CWA picketing of Verizon continues it seems some of the union leadership is becoming more and more unhinged. Apparently one member of the union leadership went so far as to instruct his members, by way of publicly accessible telephone hotline, that it is now “open season” on “managers and scabs”. The thug went on to say that union members should “follow them” and “torture them, torture them with chants and noise”. (h/t Moon Bat Tracker)

The best part of WSYR’s report, though, has to be when they call another union boss to ask them about the ridiculous instructions and the guy basically says they’re cool with it. According to him there’s nothing wrong with “militancy”. How insane can you get? Is it any wonder that unions have such a terrible reputation anymore? Have they not earned it?

The sad thing, as the Verizon rep WSYR interviewed alluded to, is most union members aren’t violent nuts. Most of them just want to go to work, make a living, and support their families. It’s thugs like this that give them all a bad name.

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I don’t know about you, but my benefits are shrinking and my wages have been reduced for 2010. And I certainly won’t be seeing any major increase in my salary this year.  My employer is struggling in this economy.  I know it, I see the sales and operating numbers.  Amazingly, no one in our company has complained once about the state of their salaries and benefits.  And after a recent round of layoffs, we’re all working two and three people’s jobs, too.  But we get it, we’re all a team, and together we have to do what we can to pitch in and help cut costs during a rough patch in time.  That’s just how business works.

Every single friend, family member, and neighbor I know is in the exact same position.

That’s why so many of us are appalled at the behavior of some of the union bosses these days.  Even some of the most ardent union defenders I know (the few people who typically argue with me over union policy) have had enough with all the headlines like this:

“As National Bargaining for 100,000 Union Members at Kaiser Permanente Begins… SEIU-UHW Members Tell Kaiser: Keep Your Hands Off Our Healthcare Benefits”

And they have also had enough of behavior like this:

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March 31^st is Cesar Chávez Day. In California and six other states, government offices are closed. At my college, Claremont McKenna and the Claremont Colleges, we celebrate Cesar Chavez for one full month. (It is widely known that even white liberals tire after that much self-flagellation – although how much they can take is still a matter of dispute.)

If that month long celebration seems excessive, it is because it is. If history is any indication, however, it may not be that long until all Americans must submit to Chavez Day because Barack Obama, as a presidential candidate, thought that it ought to be a federal holiday.

It’s tough to tell how much Obama was pandering to a certain wing of the Hispanic vote and how much he sincerely believes in the struggle of La Raza, but I submit to you, dear reader, that Cesar Chavez Day ought not to have been a holiday in the first place.

There are several myths about Chávez that deserve explanation, clarification, and explication, but the most pressing of these myths is that Chavez helped Latino fruit pickers get a living wage. He did no such thing.

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As one Change to Win labor union blocks a Red Cross blood delivery today, what will a health care system taken hostage by labor unions look like tomorrow?

As Change to Win’s Anna Burger is leading her coalition of unions to lobby all around the country “until every man, woman and child has quality, affordable care they can count on,” one of her unions is busy blocking the delivery of a Red Cross blood donation to a hospital and picketing private companies’ blood drives.

The Red Cross, which has union workers in various locations who are covered both by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and SEIU, says union leaders are trying to disrupt the Red Cross Blood Services operations by going on strike.

That’s right.  At a time of year when blood donations are at their lowest levels and are the most urgently needed, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, SEIU’s sister union and member of Burger’s Change to Win labor coalition, took advantage of the opportunity to go on strike on December 4th against the American Red Cross Blood Services Penn-Jersey Region.  Local 929  initiated the strike at midnight just as their contract expired.  Hours later, the Red Cross was forced to take legal action when some strikers illegally blocked one blood delivery in particular

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