Monday, December 12, 2011

Protesters block some gates at western US ports

Protesters block some gates at western US ports

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) â€" Hundreds of Wall Street protesters blocked gates during some of a West Coast's busiest ports on Monday, loitering truck traffic in a day of demonstrations that organizers wish will cut into a increase of a companies that run a docks.

Protesters picketing during ports in California and as distant pided as Vancouver, British Columbia, caused longer wait times for trucks. Authorities said, however, there were singular disruptions and no vital clashes with police.

The movement, that sprang adult this tumble opposite what it sees as corporate fervour and mercantile inequality, is targeting "Wall Street on a waterfront" in a many thespian gesticulate given military raids sent many remaining Occupy tent camps pinch final month.

Similar blockades were also underneath approach during ports elsewhere, including in Oregon.

It was misleading either demonstrators could assemble in sufficient numbers to significantly interrupt or force pier closures as they did final month during an overnight change during a Port of Oakland. The kinship that represents longshoremen says it doesn't support a shutdowns.

Protesters are many dissapoint by dual West Coast companies: pier user SSA Marine and pellet exporter EGT. The bank, Goldman Sachs, owns a vital interest in SSA Marine and has been a visit aim of protesters.

They contend they are station adult for workers opposite a pier companies, that have had high-profile clashes with kinship workers lately. Longshoremen during a Port of Longview in Washington, for example, have had a longstanding brawl with EGT.

In Oakland, officials urged protesters to cruise a impact on workers. Port workers and lorry drivers contend a protests will harm them.

Several hundred people picketed during a pier before emergence and blocked some trucks from going by during slightest dual entrances. A prolonged line of vast rigs sat outward one of a entrances, incompetent to expostulate into a port.

"This is joke. What are they protesting?" pronounced Christian Vega, 32, who sat in his lorry carrying a bucket of recycled paper from Pittsburgh on Monday morning. He pronounced a check was costing him $600.

"It usually hurts me and a other drivers. We have jobs and families to support and feed. Most of them don't," Vega said.

Police in proof rigging monitored a stage as protesters marched in an oval and carried signs with messages such as "Shutdown Wall St. on a Waterfront." No vital clashes were reported.

Port orator Robert Bernardo reported some disruptions to lorry trade though that nautical operations continue there. The pier has appealed to city residents not to join a blockade, that they pronounced could harm a port's station among business and cost internal jobs.

Organized labor appears pided over a pier shutdown effort.

The Nov. 2 strike that culminated in a port's closure had clever kinship support. This time, a city's teachers kinship is subsidy Monday's movement while construction workers against to a closure contend a pier has supposing jobs to many impoverished workers and apprentices.

In stormy Southern California, about 200 protesters hold a four-hour proof during a Port of Long Beach, loitering some lorry trade during one of a world's largest pier complexes. There was one arrest.

In Portland, Ore., a integrate of hundred protesters blocked entrances to dual terminals during a port, preventing trucks from entering. Police in proof rigging were on hand, though there were no evident confrontations or arrests.

Workers during a dual terminals were told to stay home, a Oregonian reported (http://bit.ly/unRr6l ). Spokesman Josh Thomas pronounced an vague series of workers during a terminals wouldn't be paid.

Before a criticism began, military done 3 arrests and seized a gun and a sword from people who pronounced they were on a approach to protests. A mouthpiece for Occupy Portland pronounced a armed organisation are not compared with a group.

"We do not send out folks with guns," Kari Koch said. "We don't devise anything illegal."

In Vancouver, demonstrators quickly blocked dual gates during Port Metro Vancouver. The Canadian Press reported demonstrators hold adult a vast ensign proclaiming oneness with longshoremen concerned in a Port of Longview dispute.

The intrusion lasted an hour before a criticism changed to a second gate, restraint it for reduction than 30 mins before relocating on.

Organizers of a pier demonstrations pronounced they wish to pull thousands to mount in oneness with longshoremen and pier truckers they pronounced are being exploited. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, however, distanced itself from a shutdown effort.

The union's boss suggested in a minute to members that protesters were attempting to co-opt a union's means to allege their own.

Shutdown supporters pronounced they're not seeking longshoremen to classify a work blocking in defilement of their contract. They pronounced they are simply seeking them to practice their giveaway debate rights and stay off a job, in gripping with a union's ancestral tradition of activism.

If protesters pattern vast adequate numbers to retard entrances, arbitrators could announce vulnerable operative conditions. That would concede pier workers to stay home.

Officials during West Coast ports pronounced they have been coordinating with law coercion agencies as they ready for probable disruptions. Protesters pronounced military crackdowns in any city will trigger an prolongation of blockades in other cities as a uncover of resolve.

___

Associated Press writers Christina Hoag in Los Angeles and Doug Esser in Seattle contributed to this report.


News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/protesters-block-gates-western-us-ports-173942023.html

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