Twenty-nine ports from San Diego to Washington state that handle more than half of U.S waterborne trade ground to a halt, but shipping experts said the economic costs of the walk-out would be limited.

"We are hearing there is no activity taking place up and down the West Coast," said Steve Getzug, spokesman of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents all 29 ports. "There is no unloading or loading."

At the Los Angeles-area port of Long Beach, a hub for trade with Asia, a Reuters reporter said the normally bustling area was unusually quiet and there were no signs of protesters.

Long Beach Port terminal operators expect union workers to return for the second shift beginning at 6:00 p.m. PDT (01:00 GMT on Friday).

Paul Bingham, an economist with Global Insight, which tracks container volume and congestion at U.S. ports, said labor officials had alerted shippers and carriers.

"If this had come as a surprise it would have been a lot more serious in its impact," said Bingham, also noting that it was not peak season for shipping.

"This isn't like the West Coast port lockout in 2002 when we shut down the ports for 10 days," he added.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union said some 10,000 workers joined the anti-war protest, spurred in part by its belief that big shipping companies are profiting from the war.

"Longshore workers are standing down on the job and standing up for America," said ILWU International President Bob McEllrath. "We're supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it's time to end the war in Iraq."

'LEVERAGE CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS'

But port officials cast doubts over the war protest motive.

PMA's Getzug said the action came two months prior to the expiration of the current labor agreement.

"Today's actions raised the question of whether this was an attempt to leverage contract negotiations," he said in a statement.

He added that the work stoppage was illegal under the PMA's contract with the ILWU.

It was not clear how many ships or containers were affected by the longshore workers action. But the PMA said that on a typical weekday shift between 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. about 10,000 containers are moved on the West Coast.

Arly Baker, spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles, said 15 ships were to arrive at the port on Thursday and about half of them had arrived and berthed before the work stoppage began for the day.

"What this amounts to is probably the same effect of an official holiday where the terminals shut down," Baker said. "There won't be a backup in cargo or some kind of bottleneck resulting from it."

Together, the neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle 43 percent of the container cargo imports, including most of the household goods shipped from China.

The two ports bring in about $1 billion of cargo daily, Baker said.

See also:

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) represents 60,000 working women and men in five states (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii) and Canada. Through more than 60 locals ILWU unites longshore workers, warehouse workers, watchmen, clerks, ferry and tugboat workers, tourism industry workers and agricultural workers.

INTERNATIONAL LONGSHORE & WAREHOUSE UNION - AFL-CIO
1188 FRANKLIN STREET,
SAN FRANCISCO,
CALIFORNIA 94109
(415) 775-0533
(415) 775-1302 FAX
WWW.ILWU.ORG

President, ROBERT McELLRATH - Vice President, JOSEPH R. RADISICH - Vice President, WESLEY FURTADO - Secretary-Treasurer, WILLIAM E. ADAMS

For immediate release: May 1, 2008 Contact: Craig Merrilees 510-774-5325
Jennifer Sargent: 503-703-2933
John Showalter: 415-775-0533, ext 139

Longshore workers are standing down at West Coast ports:

“We’re standing up for America, we’re supporting the troops, and we’re telling politicians that it’s time to end the Iraq war now!”


(SAN FRANCISCO, CA) More than 25,000 longshore workers at 29 west coast ports are exercising their First Amendment rights today by taking a day off work and calling for an end to the war in Iraq.

“Longshore workers are standing-down on the job and standing up for America,” said ILWU International President Bob McEllrath. “We’re supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq.”

McEllrath says rank-and-file members made their own democratic decision in early February when Longshore Caucus delegates voted to take action on May 1. Employers were notified of the plan, but refused to accommodate the union’s request despite plenty of advance notice. The employer group, represented by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) consists of large carriers and port operators, most of which are foreign-owned.

“Big foreign corporations that control global shipping aren’t loyal or accountable to any country,” said McEllrath. “For them it’s all about making money. But longshore workers are different. We’re loyal to America, and we won’t stand by while our country, our troops, and our economy are destroyed by a war that’s bankrupting us to the tune of 3 trillion dollars. It’s time to stand up, and we’re doing our part today.”

See also:

Ready for a cargo surge

Financial Times: Mar 27, 2007
By Andrew Ward

Cargo has been flowing through US ports with surprising ease over the past two years. Despite continued growth in the number of ocean containers entering the US, there has been no repeat of the severe congestion that spread chaos through corporate supply chains in 2004.

But while US ports are learning to cope better with surging volumes of cargo from Asia, experts warn against complacency. Much of the US freight transport system continues to operate close to full capacity, with container traffic forecast to more than double over the next 15 years, on top of the 8 per cent annual growth since 2002.

US ports are responding through a combination of capacity expansion and increased productivity. But they face resistance from environmental groups and local residents opposed to bigger ports and from labour unions wary of efficiency measures that could cost jobs.

"The volume of traffic from Asia is going to grow and our ability to handle it will rely on heavy investment in infrastructure and technology," says Brook Benz, an expert on ports at Accenture, the consulting group. "There are so many different vested interests involved in a port - the local community, the port authority, the union and workforce, the shipping lines, the railroad companies, the trucking companies - and it is very difficult to bring all those groups together."

By far the most congested bottleneck is at Los Angeles and Long Beach, which receive almost half of containerised cargo arriving in the US. Southern California was at the epicentre of the congestion crisis that struck the US three years ago, when cargo ships from Asia were forced to anchor offshore for days while waiting for space to dock.

The backlog heaped pressure on port authorities to increase capacity and improve efficiency. Hemmed in by one of America's biggest and most densely populated urban areas, building extra dock space is almost impossible and the ports have had to lengthen opening hours.

Until two years ago, America's two largest ports were open to trucks for only nine hours each weekday. Trucks arriving after the gates closed at 5pm had to wait until 8am the next day to deliver or pick up containers. The introduction of regular night and weekend shifts has more than doubled the time the ports are open. Extended hours helped Los Angeles and Long Beach handle a record 15m containers last year - up 11 per cent from the year before - without serious delays.

Despite the changes in southern California, Mr Benz says US ports are still "four or five times" less productive than Hong Kong and other leading Asian ports.

One of the biggest obstacles to increased productivity at many US ports is powerful labour unions. In 2002, all 27 US west coast ports shut down for 11 days because of a strike by the 15,000-strong International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU). The stoppage caused $15bn of losses to the US economy and it took 100 days to clear the cargo backlog.

The strike ended when the union agreed a contract that balanced union demands for improved pay and benefits with the port authorities' demand for greater productivity and wider use of technology. That contract expires in July next year and the two sides are already gearing up for months of tough negotiations.

Jim McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines, told a conference that ports and unions needed to send a message that they are ready for the next cargo surge from Asia. "The closer we come to the end of this contract without agreement, the more the phone lines from Washington to us will be burning up."

As west coast ports creak, shipping companies and their customers are looking for alternative gateways to the US. Three large ocean carriers - Maersk, APL and Hapag Lloyd - have introduced services to the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, from where cargo is transported to the US by rail. A $200m expansion is under way at Lazaro Cardenas and Mexico is also considering plans to build a new port at Colonet Bay, 120 miles south of San Diego.

Another new container port is being built at Prince Rupert Island on the rugged coast of British Columbia, Canada. Despite its remote location, the island is 1,100 miles closer to Shanghai than southern California - the equivalent of two days' travel time - and is connected to the US by an uncongested rail line.

Ports along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the US are also expanding as Asian imports destined for the eastern half of the US are increasingly shipped through the Panama Canal to avoid southern California.

A long-awaited expansion of the canal, approved by Panama voters last year and scheduled for completion in 2014, will allow bigger ships to cross from the Pacific to the Atlantic, fuelling further growth in US east coast ports. New container terminals are either under construction or planned at Houston, Texas; Mobile, Alabama; Jacksonville, Florida; Charleston, South Carolina; Wilmington, North Carolina; and Norfolk, Virginia.

But Jon DeCesare, president of WCL Consulting, a logistics consultancy, says ports alone cannot solve the capacity crunch in the US freight transport system. Improvements in port productivity must be matched by action to tackle congestion on US roads and railways. "There needs to be an integrated, nationwide, multi-modal federal transportation policy," he says. "Having an efficient port is no good unless there is an efficient transportation network to carry cargo inland."