US “occupy” protesters formed picket lines here early Tuesday after a day-long blockade of ports along the West Coast shut down a major trade cargo hub and threatened further disruption. Activists, opening a new front on the anti-capitalist campaign, had claimed victory Monday after one port was fully closed down, while freight traffic was disrupted at several others including in Oakland. Thousands of demonstrators had rallied after a day of action from California to Alaska. A group of around 150 activists in Oakland stayed up through the night and formed picket lines, aiming to disrupt workers arriving for Tuesday’s 3.00am (1100 GMT) shift.
Seventy-five percent of longshoresmen in Oakland were sent home Monday due to companies shutting docks due to safety concerns in the area, said a International Longshore and Warehouse Union spokesman. The Port of Oakland had said in an end-of-day update that there had been disruptions and delays at “several” of the port’s seven terminals during the day, and a few chose to close early to avoid further disruption.
Further north all operations were shut down at Portland, Oregon, authorities there said as darkness fell. “The terminal gates are closed with no truck traffic. An estimated 325 local longshore labor jobs were impacted today,” it said, adding that police “continue to be on hand to assist Port security officers with crowd control.” But by the afternoon the Port of Long Beach said there had been “minimal impact to port operations” during the rain-soaked demonstration by several hundred protesters at one of the world’s largest shipping ports. “Most freeways, bridges and port access routes remained open, and all shipping terminals were operational during the protest,” a port statement said. The protests were most high-profile in Oakland, where authorities wrote an open letter to protesters urging them not to shut down a port which handles around $39 billion in imports and exports each year. “The port is connected to over 73,000 jobs in the region and more than 800,000 across the country. These are not just numbers. These are good jobs held by real working people and working families,” it said.
