The Puget Sound region’s most visible symbols of international trade, the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma, were shut down for most of the day yesterday as dock workers demonstrated against the World Trade Organization.
“The ports are shut down due to a lack of labor,” said Joe Weber in the Seattle office of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines and terminal operators at West Coast ports.
More than 1,200 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s four waterfront locals at the Port of Seattle stayed away from container shipping terminals to march through downtown Seattle with thousands of other AFL-CIO members. Cargo handlers, crane operators, clerks and checkers, foremen, warehouse workers, truck drivers and others who perform tasks vital to container shipping operations remained off the job throughout the day.
“A full complement of longshore workers were dispatched to work the shift starting at 6 p.m. and they should be able to catch up with almost all of the work through the evening and morning hours,” Port of Seattle spokesman Imbert Matthee said.
“Many of the shipping lines and shippers were aware of the situation and adjusted their schedules accordingly.”
A comparable number of dock workers also stayed away at the Port of Tacoma and thus idled other workers, said port spokesman Mick Schultz.
“The longshoremen are not working, and without longshoremen you can’t operate the terminals and work the ships,” Schultz said. San Francisco Bay ports, especially the busy Port of Oakland, also were shut down through the day, said Steve Stallone, a longshore union spokesman who was among those in Seattle protesting WTO policies.
“Work should be back to normal at all California ports after the dayshift,” Stallone said by cell phone as he marched with union protesters.
Union members said they demonstrated against what they see as unfair labor practices that the WTO is not addressing. Included among those are the rights of workers in some countries to unionize, workers being paid low wages to perform tasks in unsafe conditions, children being required to work long hours, forced labor, employer disregard for the environment and other practices that erode worker rights.
The nation’s largest container shipping complex, at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, halted from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in sympathy with the Seattle marchers, causing a short delay in operations, said Joey Parr at the maritime association’s San Francisco headquarters.
Art Wong, spokesman for the Port of Long Beach, said 12 container ships were in the harbor. The three-hour shutdown did not create a major backlog there, he said.
Work at the Port of Portland and other West Coast ports also was curtailed.
