Anti-Wall Street activists rally at West Coast ports

Reuters, by Laird Harrison, OAKLAND, Calif, Mon Dec 12, 2011

Demonstrators gather at a gate to the Port of Oakland during the Occupy 

movement's attempts to shut down west coast ports in Oakland, California

December 12, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith)

(Reuters) - About 1,000 protesters chanting in the predawn darkness marched on the Port of Oakland on Monday in one of several rallies planned for West Coast cargo hubs by anti-Wall Street activists seeking to re-energize their movement.

By trying to disrupt port traffic from California to Alaska, organizers hoped to call attention to U.S. economic inequalities, high unemployment and a financial system they say is unfairly skewed toward the wealthy.

In Oakland, a boisterous crowd chanting, "Whose streets? Our streets. Whose ports? Our ports!" gathered at a transit station before sunrise, then paraded through the streets to the city's cargo port, where they were met by police in riot gear.

Protesters then formed a picket line in front of police to block the entrance.

A smaller group of demonstrators, roughly 250 to 300, rallied at a terminal facility in the Port of Long Beach, where they marched in a picket line, beat drums and shouted through bullhorns as police sought to keep the entryway clear.

A similar scene was playing out at a marine terminal in Portland, Oregon, where police on motorcycles confronted some 200 demonstrators trying to disrupt traffic.

The actions come after the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York in September saw its tent camps there and in most big cities on the West Coast dismantled by police, leaving demonstrators looking for new avenues to voice their discontent.

But efforts to force a shutdown of multiple ports simultaneously could prove difficult because some of the facilities are in massive complexes with numerous entrances that would be hard to fully block, even if protesters turn out in large numbers.

Activists aligned with the Occupy movement did briefly succeed in shuttering maritime operations at Oakland, the nation's fourth busiest container port by volume, for several hours on November 2 after police there kept their distance.

Oakland, long an Occupy hot spot, was expected again to be center stage on Monday in a day of protest seen as a test of the movement's momentum. Organizers also were targeting the combined ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and Portland, Anchorage, Seattle, Tacoma and Houston.

"The objective of the day is to shut down the port through mass action," said Mike King, a graduate student who acts as a media liaison for Occupy Oakland. "The Occupy movement is attacking the 1 percent at their point of profit."

WOUNDED VETERAN EXPECTED TO TAKE PART

Among those expected to take part in the port protests was Scott Olsen, a U.S. Marine veteran critically wounded in October clashes with police in Oakland in an incident that gave fresh impetus to the Occupy movement.

"Scott's decision to demonstrate so soon following a serious injury is symbolic of the Occupy movement's resilience following a series of nationwide, coordinated crackdowns against the 99 percent," Iraq Veterans Against the War said in a statement announcing Olsen would take part.

The Port of Oakland has mounted a public relations campaign to dissuade protesters from joining the effort, while two of the largest labor unions involved have split -- with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union opposed to the blockade and Teamsters taking a neutral stance.

But union workers were largely expected to stay on the job, and were contractually barred from joining such a strike. The protest will focus in part on truck drivers who earn low wages and cannot join unions because they are classified as independent, and must provide their own trucks.

"It's a group that encapsulates basically everything that is wrong with society," King said.

Among the companies at which protesters directed their ire was SSA Marine, which loads and unloads cargo ships. Organizers said they planned to target its terminal at the combined ports of Los Angeles-Long Beach, which together handle 40 percent of the nation's waterborne imports.

"They are independent contractors," SSA Marine spokesman Bob Watters said of the nonunion drivers. Truckers provide their own vehicles and the lease agreements are day by day, he said, allowing them to work for many companies.

Oakland port spokesman Isaac Kos-Read said the issue of independent truckers was being adjudicated in court, and that the port was working with unions and its tenants to improve the environmental impact of trucking.

(Additional reporting by R.T. Watson in Long Beach and Dan Cook in Portland; Writing by Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton and Andrea Evans)