LOS ANGELES (AP) — West Coast cargo traffic came to a halt Thursday as port workers staged daylong anti-war protests, terminal operators said Thursday. Thousands of dockworkers 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.
Workers were expected to return for the start of the evening shift, he said.
"There's no work happening so that means there's no cargo being unloaded and certainly being loaded either," Getzug said.
Getzug could not immediately say how much the walkout would cost employers or how many dockworkers failed to show up to work.
In a statement Thursday, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union defended its members' right to take off work to protest the U.S. war in Iraq.
"Big foreign corporations that control global shipping aren't loyal or accountable to any country," said Bob McEllrath, the ILWU's international president. "But longshore workers are different. We're loyal to America, and we won't stand by while our country, our troops, and our economy are destroyed by a war."
The West Coast ports are the nation's principal gateway for cargo container traffic from the Far East. In a typical day shift, about 10,000 cargo containers are loaded and unloaded from ships coastwide, Getzug said.
Longshore workers handle everything from operating cranes at port marine terminals to clerical work like coordinating truck cargo deliveries.
A total of about 25,000 of them work at 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington. About 6,000 were working the day shift last Thursday, handling cargo from 30 ships coastwide, Getzug said.
J. Craig Shearman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation, said shippers and exporters expected no significant, long-term disruptions from the walkout.
"This is something that happens every year," Shearman said. "Shippers and exporters know about it and plan around it, and we don't expect to see any significant disruptions from it."
Shearman said many longshore workers on the West Coast took the day off last year to participate in immigration rallies.
Associated Press Writers Gillian Flaccus in Los Angeles and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.