Occupiers Blockade West Coast Ports

OAKLAND, CA., December 13 — Thousands of Occupiers, confronted by police in riot gear, shut or disrupted ports from Anchorage, Alaska, to Southern Ca., highlighting economic inequality and high unemployment.

Thousands of pickets chanting “Whose ports? Our Ports!” forced the closing of four shipping terminals here. Hundreds shut two of Portland’s four main terminals. Seattle cops used “flash-bang” percussion grenades against protestors blocking the port entrance, arresting 11.

Pickets in Longview, Wash., demonstrated in solidarity with longshoremen fighting EGT Investment over the latter’s takeover of their jobs. They were also protesting Goldman-Sachs which owns a stake in the largest cargo terminal operator, SSA Marine. Other demonstrations occurred as far south as Long Beach, CA. and as far north as Vancouver, Canada and Anchorage, Alaska.

Although the longshore union refused to support the actions, an Oakland docker said “the rank and file have spoken today by not crossing the lines.”

Reuters reported (12/13) that in Oakland, “Two longshoremen outside the gate said they would refuse to cross the picket lines to get to their jobs and assumed others would follow suit” (Sacramento Bee 12/13).

Doug Seaman, a 35-year-old unemployed construction worker, told the San Francisco Chronicle (12/12), “We need to make the public aware that Wall Street’s tentacles have infiltrated every facet of our lives.”