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Los Angeles
Port workers ditch work, slow cargo movement to protest war
By ALEX VEIGA, AP BUSINESS WRITER - May 1, 2008
LOS ANGELES -- West Coast cargo traffic came to a halt Thursday as port workers ditched work to commemorate May Day and call on the U.S. to end the war in Iraq.
Thousands of dockworkers at 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington did not show up for the morning shift, leaving ships and truck drivers idle at ports from Long Beach to Seattle, Pacific Maritime Association spokesman Steve Getzug said.
The longshore workers were expected to return to work for the start of the evening shift, Getzug said.
"There's no work happening so that means there's no cargo being unloaded and certainly being loaded either," Getzug said.
May Day is an international day of labor solidarity.
Longshore workers at several ports participated in rallies with other anti-war protesters, while a number of workers chose to make their statement simply by taking the day off.
In Seattle, several hundred demonstrators were joined by longshoremen for a protest march along the waterfront. Some protesters held signs saying "No Iraq War" and "Stop the war on immigrants and Iraq."
West Coast Dockworkers Dispute Could Paralyze U.S. Economy
Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the TWSC. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.
By Matt Smith - San Francisco Weekly, February 6, 2008
Imploding U.S. mortgage markets leave behind trillions of dollars in economic damage. The dollar's slide against the euro and the yuan raises fears of a currency collapse. January job losses portend recession.
To these threats to U.S. economic stability, add a new and severe one that is brewing in the conference rooms of the Cathedral Hill Hotel, a blue-collar establishment on Van Ness. There, West Coast dockworkers' representatives are devising a strategy to renegotiate a unified ports agreement with shipping companies that is scheduled to expire July 1. If the renegotiation is as fractious as it was in 2002 — when shippers attempted to break the union by shutting down 29 West Coast ports for 10 days — an extended dispute could paralyze U.S. economic activity and send financial markets tumbling.
A shutdown like the last one "carries the very real risk of triggering a sudden crisis in international financial markets," U.C. Berkeley professor Stephen Cohen, co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, wrote in a 2002 paper. When I spoke with him last week, he said he'd be watching the situation this time, too: "I don't think the significance is any different. At some point, you start running out of parts, and the factory stops, and the factory that relies on that factory for components stops, and you have a chain reaction that's really rather a nightmare."
LA County Fed Supports Fall Anti-War Actions
The LA County Federation of Labor passed this resolution at its Delegate meeting, August 20, 2007
Resolution Supporting Fall Anti-war ActivitiesWhereas, these conflicts continue unabated, and over 3700 US troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and fighters opposed to the occupation have lost their lives, and countless others have been wounded, and
Whereas, the costs of the war, both in its operation and expected costs in healthcare and benefits for returning troops is projected to be over 1 trillion dollars, while other pressing human needs at home such as healthcare, education, housing, and disaster recovery (such as Katrina) are neglected and under funded, and
Whereas, major labor leaders have recently condemned the actions of the Iraqi Oil Minister in declaring public trade unions illegal, adding to the attacks on workers in that country,
West Coast giants see Baja bay project as safety valve, not competitor
By Gordon Smith - COPLEY NEWS SERVICE, July 1, 2007
LOS ANGELES – The attitude that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have toward talk of a proposed megaport in the remote Baja California bay of Colonet might be summed up in three words: What, me worry?
Predicting that a river of Asian cargo flowing into the United States will continue to swell for at least the next 13 years, officials at the two Los Angeles-area ports – the largest by volume in the nation – say there's likely to be plenty of freight for everyone even if the Mexican port is built 150 miles south of San Diego.
“The sense right now is that there's enough cargo to go around. We're not seeing developments like Punta Colonet as being threatening to our port,” said Mike Christensen, deputy executive director for development for the Port of Los Angeles. “We're looking at it as a safety valve as much as anything else.”
Port of Long Beach spokesman Art Wong agreed. “Realistically, we can't handle all of the growth,” he said.
Still, as delays dog the proposed port in Baja, the two Los Angeles-area ports – together with their related agencies and private partners – are gearing up to spend billions of dollars to expand container terminals, replace bridges, streamline rail and freeway connections, and make other major infrastructure improvements.
Can tugboat death be guide to safety? - Maritime workers' unions raise questions in wake of an accident.
By Ronald D. White - Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, June 18, 2007
On the last morning of her life, 26-year-old Piper Inness Cameron was doing exactly what she had always wanted to do.
She was working on the deck of a tugboat and counting the days until she, like her father, would be piloting one. There were 41 to go.
Then, at 11 a.m. Feb. 20 while moving through Santa Monica Bay about two miles off Marina del Rey, something went wrong. A line linking the tug and the barge it was towing suddenly struck Cameron and slammed her into a railing. She died before reaching a hospital.
The accident almost four months ago was a wake-up call for the unions representing more than 15,000 West Coast maritime industry workers. The swell in global trade and the technological advances that have made shipping more efficient than ever before have compounded the hazards of maritime jobs, and labor leaders are calling for new safety studies and standards.
"We can't let her death go in vain," said Alan Cote, national president of the Inlandboatmen's Union.
