Maher Terminals will shut down its Tripoli Street facility in Port Elizabeth, N.J., Brian Maher, chairman and chief executive officer, said Friday.

The International Longshoremen's Association had set up a picket line at Maher's Tripoli Street terminal against Evergreen America Corp., the U.S. agent of Evergreen Marine Corp. Maher Terminals will be moving non-Evergreen operations to its Fleet Street facility in Port Elizabeth.

A spokesman for John Bowers, ILA president, told Shippers' News Wire the union's picket line would not be extended to Maher's Fleet Street terminal as long as no Evergreen ships called there.

The ILA's work stoppage against Evergreen "definitely continues in force," the ILA spokesman said. "The National Labor Relations Board will meet next week with ILA attorneys, and the present situation will go on until we hear from the board.”

"At this time, the ILA work stoppage against Evergreen continues in the ports of New York-New Jersey, Baltimore, Norfolk, Savannah, and Port Everglades," said Barbara Yeninas, a spokesperson for Evergreen America Corp.

Meantime, in Charleston, S.C., members of ILA Local 1422 have worked one Evergreen vessel against the wishes of the international union.

An ILA official in New York said, "we are distressed and deeply shocked that some of our local's members in Charleston crossed a picket line."

Not all of the ILA's members assigned to the Evergreen vessel crossed the line, but enough did so that partial crews could work the ship.

According to labor sources, Ken Riley, president of Local 1422, told his members to cross his own international union's picket line because he was fearful of "being hit with a secondary boycott," meaning his local could become a target for litigation by Evergreen customers having cargo delayed by the ILA work stoppage.

Bowers, in an e-mail to union members, said, "picket lines established by refusing to bargain with the ILA as directed by the National Labor Relations Board is a lawful, bona fide picket line. An arbitrator in the Port of New York and New Jersey so found in his decision.

"As you are well aware, a provision in the Master Contract gives covered ‘employees the right not to cross a bona fide picket line,’ " Bowers said.