“Heat & Hammer” Wins historic first contract at Wallenius in Tacoma

Local 23 welcomes 150 new workers; here’s how we won

After ten months of bargaining and holding strong against an aggressive union busting campaign, 150 workers at the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL)Tacoma Vehicle Processing Center won a first contract with ILWU Local 23

Part of the ILWU’s Supply Chain, Logistics, and Transport (SCLT) organizing program, Local 23’s victory over WWL is a powerful step down the supply chain and toward greater union power for the entire ILWU.

Here’s how we did it:

Building the Union at WWL

In 2019, Wallenius opened a new “vehicle processing center” (VPC) across the street from a major ro-ro/break bulk terminal in the Port of Tacoma. Workers at the VPC prepare vehicles before they go to the dealership, including post-factory
accessory installs, parts-handling in the warehouse, moving cars to and from satellite yards, quality control, a body shop, and rail team that loads vehicles onto autorack train cars.

Wallenius is the largest ro-ro carrier in the world and also a PMA member company. As a signatory to the PCL&CA, they’re familiar with good union standards and wages — and can easily afford them. In 2024, Wallenius brought in $5.3 billion in revenue and more than $1 billion in profits alone. But wages for WWL distro drivers were less than 40% of what ILWU longshore workers earn performing the same work for the same company. Other problems, such as abusive management, dangerous speed-ups, deliberately high turnover, and other sweatshop conditions, were even worse.

Despite having unionized facilities around the world, WWL intended to keep their Tacoma VPC non-union — and above all, the company directive was to keep the ILWU out. These low wages and poor conditions posed an existential threat
to ILWU standards and jurisdiction. Local 23 knew organizing the VPC would strengthen our position, and VPC workers knew with longshore power at their backs, they could disrupt the flow of cargo and force Wallenius to the table.

VPC workers launched the union fight with a mass strike that coincidentally coincided with a vessel offload on February 7, 2024, walking off the job after managers reacted to their demands for respecting health and safety by illegally threatening to fire workers in retaliation, landing several “unfair labor practice” (ULP) charges against WWL. Longshore workers discharging autos refused to cross the picket line. Operations at the facility ground to a halt, and no new cars made their way in.

But successful mass strikes don’t happen spontaneously. They take careful preparation. VPC workers spent months building an organizing committee, one conversation at a time. These discreet “one-on-one’s,” conducted away from management’s watchful eyes, are the essential building block for organizing a union. With support from ILWU Local 23 President Jared Faker and ILWU Assistant Organizing Director Jon Brier, the committee met on a monthly and then weekly basis to share updates about their ongoing efforts.

The day after the strike, workers announced they were joining ILWU Local 23 and demanded voluntary recognition. WWL declined and filed for an NLRB vote instead, hoping to defeat the union in a certification vote. The company flew in their union-busting team from at least four states and Canada, texting anti-ILWU propaganda to employees and holding anti-union meetings on a near-daily basis. Despite WWL’s efforts, workers prevailed by a vote of 2-1 on March 21.

After the vote, we invited everyone from the bargaining unit to propose contract demands and then elected a 20-person bargaining committee, including Local 23 President Jared Faker as chair, At-Large Labor Representative Zack Pattin as vice chair, and Jon Brier, who directs the ILWU SCLT program. This large, broadly-representative committee was a constant thorn in the side of WWL. The company’s chief negotiator (a longtime union buster picked up from Amazon) complained for months about the size of the committee and their “decorum.”

This big committee ensured that members’ needs across every department were met, but there was another reason for it too: the union’s members are the union’s greatest strength. Packing the room means rank-and-file workers themselves control and shape negotiations and also get to see firsthand just how little the company thinks of them. When you see firsthand who’s fighting for you and who’s against you, it’s easy to pick your side and stick with them.

Battle for a first contract

On June 4, we sat down with WWL and hit them with a full proposal covering every issue that goes into a contract, including complete job descriptions, jurisdiction, terms of the agreement, a working grievance machinery, year-by-year wage scale — even a cover page and signature lines. That move caught them off guard and left WWL’s negotiators speechless. The next two days, they returned with copy-paste responses, mostly from their company handbook.

This zero-effort approach was the norm for the first several months. WWL made clear they would obstruct, stall, delay, and drag out negotiations as long as they could. Engaging in petty debate, showing up late, cancelling bargaining dates, refusing to schedule more than just two half-days a month at times, even making an issue about the temperature of water provided — WWL wanted to waste our time. Many of their responses were incoherent and contradictory. Several passes were blatantly illegal, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or Washington state L&I.

The worst of WWL’s behavior wasn’t at the table, however, but back at the facility. Before or after almost every single session, a committee member or supporter would be forced into unsafe or irregular assignments, written up for fabricated infractions, even illegally fired for union activity. In one case, a manager hurled racist slurs at a bargaining committee member and threatened to fight him in the parking lot.

During negotiations, the union filed fifteen ULPs. Marches on the boss, sometimes 50 people at a time, were a regular occurrence. Workers struck two more times, both in response to illegal discipline and firings: On August 2, a one-day ULP strike over the firing of Dakota Booth and forcing others to walk through high-traffic
areas; in December, a four-day ULP strike in response to WWL’s firing of bargaining committee member Milton Turner. Again, longshore workers, and additionally truck drivers and railroad workers, honored picket lines, and the facility was shut down.

Our committee was trained and prepared for these attacks (what organizers call “inoculation”) before negotiations even started. We made regular reminders of what ILWU Organizer Jon Brier told everyone before we started: That the bargaining table is only where we measure our strength. The job itself — where workers are able to take collective action to disrupt production — is where we have our power.|

Another powerful tool was our regular member bulletins. Summarizing discussions and providing updates on tentative agreements (TAs), these bulletins were an antidote to WWL’s attempts to control the narrative, helping dispel rumors and other misinformation. Though written for members, our bulletins caught the
attention of management too, including executives as far away as Norway.

Bad publicity and the threat of further disruption forced WWL to change gears. Corporate leadership reached out to the Port of Tacoma and scheduled a meeting with commissioners and Local 23 President Jared Faker, hoping to ease tensions and worker militancy. President Faker made clear the ILWU’s commitment to moving cargo, but that the union would never back down in the fight for good conditions. WWL added a new negotiator to their committee: a retired general manager from Vancouver, BC.

In part, this change was just about getting a more reliable set of eyes and ears on the situation. WWL’s new direction at times undermined their in-house union buster’s own agenda: an obsessive hostility towards workers’ rights, regardless of what’s best for the company. We began making progress on core issues for the first time, including defeating WWL’s demands for 12-hour days and mandatory extra shifts.

In January, though, we took a hit when General Motors imports returned to Baltimore. WWL imposed layoffs and manipulated the situation, claiming it was because of the union’s “unreasonable” demands. But GMs were only temporarily here (something WWL told workers from the start), a short-term fix for pandemic-related supply chain issues. Undeterred, our committee refused to cave. WWL’s entire team was visibly taken aback when the committee kept pressing
ahead with full confidence.

Still convinced they had the upper hand, WWL tried to slow the pace of negotiations again. We needed to escalate in a new way to keep the pressure on. That’s where the ILWU’s international allies came in.

Letters of support from dockworker and maritime unions around the world flooded in: East Coast longshore with the ILA, Australia, Belgium, Benin, Bermuda, Japan, New Zealand, Ukraine, Uruguay, and international federations like the IDC and ITF.
Dockers with the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) in Port Kembla and All Japan Dockworkers Union (Zenkowan) in Yokohama picketed on the docks and even took actions aboard Wallenius vessels, including hand-delivering letters demanding WWL bargain in good faith.

The next time we met, we secured nine TAs in two days, our single most productive session. And on April 2, 2025, after ten months at the table, we locked in wages and healthcare, and had a near complete TA — except for one outstanding issue: wiping out past discipline.

Despite assurances from WWL’s negotiators that both parties would benefit from a clean slate, the company’s union buster had other plans. The bulk of this discipline was purely retaliatory. After a few tense days, WWL folded and reset discipline records back to zero in the majority of cases. A few special circumstances moved to lower steps in the discipline process, while others continued before the NLRB. Just this month, the Board announced it will prosecute WWL for firing Violet
Moman. She was on the organizing committee and fired the day after the certification vote.

Three other illegal firings were resolved through the MOU, including bargaining committee members Dakota Booth and Vance Flippin, as well as Isiah Soto, who was fired for taking a phone call from his niece’s school. He was late to get her because of mandatory overtime — a practice now banned by the contract: If you’re assigned overtime, but have to pick up your kids from school, you’re exempt from all required overtime assignments for childcare purposes and emergencies.

Ratification, retaliation, & fighting back

With a complete tentative agreement in hand, we scheduled read-throughs for members to attend and went over every word of the contract, taking questions along the way. When members voted on May 1 (International Workers’ Day, as it were) the contract passed by 97%. Here’s what we won:

• Average of 50-60% raises
• 95% employer-match healthcare
• The right to standby over safety
• Joint Labor Relations Committee
• 40-hour (full-time) guarantee
• Fair scheduling
• 100% voluntary extra shifts
• 3 weeks vacation after 3 years, 4 weeks after 7 years, 5 weeks after 12 years
• Additional leave even after exhausting sick time
• 14 holidays, including MLK Day and Bloody Thursday

Among the contracts we reviewed from other WWL VPCs and their competition, like Auto Warehousing Company (AWC), the standards we won in Tacoma are far and away the best, helping set the bar and raise expectations for Wallenius employees across the country. But now comes the next fight: enforce the contract and protect what we won.

Barely allowing the dust to settle, WWL’s union buster resumed operations soon after ratification. The company announced a punitive round of layoffs less than a week into the new contract, followed by a slew of flagrant violations: deliberately misclassifying employees into lower-paid categories, denying protected forms of medical leave, management doing bargaining unit work (in the midst of layoffs, no
less), understaffing rail in violation of safety requirements, and more.

On June 24, WWL announced fourteen additional layoffs, targeting four more members of the bargaining committee: Richard Booth, Jose Camacho, Ladda Hilyard, and Jessica Roberson (who became a fourth-generation ILWU Local 23 member when she swore in at the June meeting). Everyone laid off took part in strikes, signed petitions, or marched on the boss, and the majority have spoken with NLRB agents about WWL’s illegal activities.

On the same day, WWL fired Garret Wagner, another bargaining committee member, whose past discipline had also been cleared by the MOU. Garret and his girlfriend, Violet Moman, have both been long targeted by the company. He was fired two weeks after the NLRB announced it would prosecute WWL for Violet’s illegal firing last year.

But we’re not taking these lying down. Members now have the ability to fight back using their contract. We’ve filed grievances on behalf of all the workers laid off or fired on June 24, not to mention the two dozen other grievances already in the system. Four have been adjusted in members’ favor so far. The rest we’ll fight to resolve through the JLRC and take to arbitration if we have to. With support
from longshore workers across the street and around the globe, we’ve beaten this company on every front so far, and we’re ready to win again.

A new march inland

Securing a first contract and expanding ILWU jurisdiction to WWL’s Tacoma VPC is the biggest win to date in a string of local victories in recent years. Following previous drives at P&B Intermodal, organizing eight mechanics in Tacoma in 2021 and ten more in Seattle in 2022, thirteen bunker fuelers at NAES in Tacoma in 2023, successfully organizing a new unit at WWL perfectly illustrates the union’s
“heat & hammer” model: worker heat to fight back meets union hammer to disrupt cargo.

All three of these companies share several features and pose an existential threat to the ILWU. Each of those employers ran a non-union, sweatshop operation immediately adjacent to longshore work, potentially allowing for the transfer of good, union work to non-union sites close to the docks or further inland. Case in point: nearly every warehouse handling marine cargo along the Kent Valley in Washington State or the Inland Empire stretching across Southern California.

Prior to containerization, the individual pieces of cargo that now move through these warehouses were hand-stowed by an ILWU member inside the hold of a ship. Now, palletized and stuffed into 40-foot steel boxes, the contents of that container are handled just once on the vessel by a single crane pick. What used to be a 16-person gang hired for a week or more at a time is now a fraction of that and only good for maybe 2-3 shifts.

Though the ILWU Coast Longshore Division’s numbers have grown in the past two decades with the rise of China and the East Asian economy, our numbers have not kept up with the exponential increase of non-union warehouse jobs throughout the country. The process of containerization and the transfer of union work away from the docks and into non-union sweatshops over the last half century has systematically dismantled our work and undermines our power at the bargaining table.

We have to recapture this off-dock work and bring it under ILWU jurisdiction the old-fashioned way: building majority support through one-on-one conversations and forcing employers to sign a contract under the threat of disrupting the flow of cargo.

If you’re a longshore worker or a warehouse worker, you can help. Start thinking about where the goods you handle go to and from. If you know somebody who works at one of these warehouses, fulfillment centers, or cross-docks, start talking to them about how they can improve their pay and conditions. The ILWU has an entire Organizing Department staffed with dedicated full-time organizers who can help.

If employers in our industry are allowed to maintain these sweatshop conditions, that threatens everything we’ve built over generations of struggle. Our founders understood this: it’s both our 7th Guiding Principle and why we have the ‘W’ in our name. The logic behind organizing sugar and pineapple in Hawaii stems from that same astute understanding of capital and the flow of cargo as well: longshore workers need to follow our work down the supply chain and build union power along the way. If we don’t, and the employers’ control goes unchecked for too long, we could lose what we’ve fought so hard to keep.

What we’re doing at WWL is a major step toward protecting the future of the ILWU and building our power as a union — and we’re not stopping there. Let’s organize the unorganized.

– Zack Pattin, ILWU Local 23