By Amy Hsuan - The Oregonian Staff, May 2, 2008

For about eight hours Thursday, up and down the West Coast, shipyards stood quiet, rail cars stopped and trucks scheduled for deliveries and pickups were turned back at the port gates.

Ten thousand dockworkers -- including about 200 in the Portland area -- took May Day off in defiance of labor contracts, bringing 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle to a standstill. Union leaders said they wanted to stage a protest against U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, but port operators speculated that a big reason for the walkout is to demonstrate union solidarity in the midst of labor negotiations.

Operations at the Port of Portland, Oregon's largest port, were minimally affected since no cargo ships arrived Thursday.

The show of force by the longshoremen's union comes despite an independent arbitrator's ruling Wednesday in California that the workers had a contractual obligation "to report to work as they normally do."

The 25,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, representing port operators and large shippers, are just two months away from the expiration of their labor contract.

Union leaders say the decision to ditch work Thursday wasn't meant to be a negotiating tactic, but a show of support for an end to the Iraq war on a day that's historically represented solidarity in organized labor.

In Portland, chants of "No peace, no work," echoed from the Eastbank Esplanade around noon, where 70 dockworkers set 800 carnations afloat in the Willamette River, commemorating the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers who have died.

"A lot of longshore workers are veterans and have family and friends in the war, and they're fed up," said Jennifer Sargent, a local union spokeswoman. "They're taking a patriotic stand here."

But representatives of the Pacific Maritime Association, whose members include 72 shipping companies, say that the message union leaders are sending is not entirely about the war.

"Is this a voluntary war protest or a strike aimed at leveraging labor negotiations? We're not sure," said Steve Getzug, spokesman for the employer group based in Los Angeles.

In January, 100 elected union leaders representing West Coast workers passed a resolution to take a stand on the Iraq war, which was disputed by the Pacific Maritime Association.

John Kagel, the coast arbitrator, listened to both sides in a meeting last week and in two telephone calls Wednesday. Kagel ultimately ruled that the workers had to show up to work.

"When an arbitrator makes a decision, that decision is final and binding," Kagel said.

Union leaders took a different view. "We respect the arbitration process, but the union also recognizes the rights of our members to exercise their right to free speech," said John Showalter, spokesman for the ILWU in San Francisco. "This is completely independent of contract negotiations. The members are not being paid today. The negotiations today are going well and we hope they continue going smoothly."

At the Port of Portland's terminals, the absence of workers Thursday was a minor hiccup in the daily flow of goods from dock to door.

No container ships or barges were scheduled to arrive in the Port on Thursday, said Joshua Thomas, Port spokesman. Most of the activity in the shipping yards or on the docks occurs when a ship arrives bearing goods. That ship is unloaded and then immediately loaded up with Oregon exports by dockworkers.

"Without container ships, that work would have been minimal or none," Thomas said. The Port opened the docks and yard at 7 a.m. Thursday and closed them shortly after when it became clear the dockworkers weren't going to show.

But in larger ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, where 15 ships were due to dock, the lull could amount to millions of extra dollars and a logistical nightmare, said John Martin, a maritime economist.

"Essentially, any type of dislocation like this in the supply chain is significant," Martin said. "There are ships that cost between $100,000 to $150,000 a day at hold. They're on a strict sailing schedule. Truckers are waiting. There's an impact on the rails. There are a lot of people who aren't going to be paid today."

In 2002, contract negotiations between the longshoremen's union and the association resulted in a 10-day shut down at 29 West Coast ports.

Every day, about $5.5 billion worth of goods move in and out of U.S. ports. About half move through West Coast ports, which support 7.1 million jobs each year and account for $1.2 trillion, or about 10 percent of the entire gross domestic product in the United States, according to the American Association of Port Authorities.

Aaron Ellis, spokesman for the association, said when dockworkers don't show, it sends an uncertain message to major trading partners overseas who are already uneasy about the U.S. economy.

"Ports always want to work toward a stable and reliable work force," Ellis said. "Things like this make the whole nation less attractive for international markets."

The union's defiance of the arbitrator's order could have far-reaching implications in its contract negotiations, said Portland attorney Chrys A. Martin, who specializes in labor law and is a shareholder of Bullivant, Houser and Bailey.

The association now has the right to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which can enforce monetary sanctions against the union.

"They know they're not supposed to do this," Martin said. "They've been told not to do this by an arbitrator. It's a clear violation. At the same time, it's hard to make people come to work."