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.

Lawrence J. Maushard - May 2, 2008, posted at Portland Indymedia

An unprecedented display of labor muscle pumped up the peace movement yesterday when an estimated 25,000 union longshore workers took May Day off for an antiwar shutdown of all West Coast ports, including the ports of Portland and Vancouver.

The protest by International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) longshore workers momentarily froze the vibrant Pacific rim trade - autos, appliances, manufactured goods, foodstuffs and more - in a rare coordinated display by a major American union fed up with the US war in Iraq and the trillions of dollars spent in that effort.

"It's a war that started with a lie. If I went to the courts and told a lie, they'd lock me up," Jerry Lawrence, 59, of Portland, a rank-and-file union member said on May Day. "Now why the hell didn't they lock Bush up or kick him outta office? I blame my senators for not stepping up."

The 27-year longshoreman with ILWU Portland Local 8 was attending a union-sponsored mid-day riverside ceremony on the East Bank Esplanade just north of the Burnside Bridge to mark the union's antiwar stance. About 150 union and peace supporters crowded on the narrow floating docks to hear a few speeches and drop more than 800 yellow carnations in the Willamette river in solemn remembrance of the US deaths in Iraq (one flower for each 5 dead American soldiers now totaling about 4,050).

Posted by The Oregonian - May 01, 2008

About 65 to 70 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 8 gathered on the Eastbank Esplanade between the Burnside and Steel bridges about noon Thursday to place 800 carnations in the Willamette River.

The group was commemorating the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers who have died in the Iraq war.

ILWU workers were joined by members of other groups, including Commander Harvey Thorstad, U.S. Navy (Ret.) of the Portland chapter of Veterans for Peace.

"The whole purpose of the demonstration is to bring light to the people that want to bring the troops home, now," Thorstad said.

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