Better Days Ahead for Port of Tacoma Workers - Bellingham Herald

Thanks to Grand Alliance: Game-changing amount of work bringing an expected hundreds of jobs, new positions

For 66 longshore workers, last Thursday’s ceremony inducting them into Longshore Local 23 as full-fledged “A”-level workers was both a right of passage and a tangible sign that the lean times that the Port of Tacoma and the union have endured for four years are finally fading.

It’s now less than a month before the first containership, the Dusseldorf Express, owned by the port’s newest customer, will call on Washington United Terminals on the Blair Waterway. That customer is the Grand Alliance, a consortium of three shipping companies, NYK Line, Hapag-Lloyd and OOCL. Those three shipping lines are moving to Tacoma from the Port of Seattle. ... more ...

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/06/03/2548087/better-days-ahead-for-port-of.html#storylink=cpy