Puget Sound Dockers Stage Sympathy Strike

Dock workers in Tacoma and Seattle joined an international shutdown of ports Monday night to support dock workers in a long-running labor dispute in England.

“We are taking the night off in support of the Liverpool dockers,” said Lee Braach, president of Tacoma’s Local 23 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Union members in San Francisco had said the shutdown would last for eight hours in ports up and down the West Coast. Officials said the shift is one of the busiest times of the week.

Similar protests were planned in Australia, Scandinavia and elsewhere.

Port of Tacoma docks shut down at 6 p.m., to remain closed until 3 a.m., Braach said. The union’s regular safety meeting Monday night focused on issues related to the Liverpool strike, he said.

No ships were in port Monday night, however.

In Seattle, loading and unloading of two container ships halted when dock workers joined the sympathy move Monday night, said an official of the ILWU Local 19 who did not want to be identified. That shutdown also was expected to last until 3 a.m.

About 330 dock workers in Liverpool were fired two years ago for refusing to cross a picket line while fighting privatization of their docks. The pickets were set up by employees of an independent endeavor that had collapsed at the Merseyside Docks and Harbour Co.

“Privatization is an issue worldwide and this international action is critical in winning our struggle,” said a statement released Saturday by the International Committee for the Victory of the Liverpool Dockers.