Longshoremen’s Walkout Idles Major Ports : Labor: One-day action protests potential harbor closures and discipline of two union members. Work is halted from San Diego to Vancouver.

Every major port along the West Coast, including those in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and San Francisco, was shut down for 24 hours Monday in a surprise job action by an international longshoremen’s union that demonstrated the labor organization’s muscle while costing millions of dollars.

Work was back to normal Tuesday after union officials ended their protest against potential harbor closings and disciplinary action taken against two longshoremen in Seattle.

Commerce was halted from San Diego to Vancouver at 23 ports when between 8,000 and 10,000 International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union workers failed to show up for work.

Containers of merchandise sat untouched on piers or in cargo holds, while 43 ships all along the coast idled in their berths. Hundreds of train cars on which goods were to be loaded sat empty.

Every day a ship is in port can cost the owners up to $50,000 per day, according to shipping officials.

“We are a busy port. You pull a stunt like this and it really backs things up,” said Jay Winter, executive secretary of the Steamship Assn. of Southern California.

In Long Beach, the nation’s busiest port, 13 ships were docked, and all but one, an Arco tanker handled by the company’s own workers, floated in silence Monday as the work stoppage dragged through the day.

“It was a big surprise for everyone on the West Coast,” said Yvonne Avila, spokeswoman for the Long Beach port. “It throws the entire ship rotation off schedule. Now the ships will arrive a day late at their next destination. And the destination after that. And the destination after that.”

About 1,000 union members were scheduled to work the docks in Long Beach and Los Angeles.

In a statement from its San Francisco headquarters, the union said the job action was the result of several “long-simmering” disputes with the Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents West Coast steamship lines and port operators. The union charged that the association “continues to interfere” with the union’s internal affairs, specifically by disciplining union officers who act on behalf of rank-and-file workers.

While union leaders refused to release more specific information, officials from the Pacific Maritime Assn. said the action was caused in part by the 15-day suspensions given two former union officers for trying to force a worker off the job.

A statement from the union also blasted the association’s proposals to cease operations at some small ports, hire private companies to operate other ports and replace clerks with computer filing systems.

“The work stoppage is in no way likely to end in the resolution of these problems, which have to be worked out at the bargaining table,” said Terry N. Lane, vice president of the association.

By not showing up for work, the longshoremen sacrificed $4.5 million in wages and assessments for pensions, Lane said.

Port and shipping officials acknowledged that the union’s surprise work stoppage demonstrated a clout that organized labor has lost in other industries. The union has gained power as oceangoing commerce has increased, they said.

The job action, which began at 8 a.m. Monday, left 18 ships idle in the Los Angeles port. With no longshoremen to unload the cargo, hundreds of train cars bound for inland commercial centers were left waiting on the tracks. Port officials had to warn more than 2,000 truckers who service the port daily not to make the drive.

For Evergreen America Corp., the largest U.S. container shipper, the job action tied up its ship in the Los Angeles port, where the company maintains three berths. Merchandise arriving at the port is to be warehoused for the holiday season, said company spokesman Bob Kleist. During the height of the shipping season from midsummer to early fall, the company ships 2,000 containers per day in and out of the port, Kleist said.

“I wouldn’t describe the ILWU as a threat to getting business done, but there are times when it seems as if labor feels it must make its point by stopping work,” Kleist said. “It was a very big surprise.”

At the giant International Transportation Service Inc., a stevedore company that uses huge cranes to load container cargo in Long Beach, the action delayed by 24 hours the loading of the freighter Gulf Spirit, bound for the Far East.

Jay Perry, the assistant director of operations for the company, said the ship could be affected at the other end of its journey as well because unloading schedules are so stringent that even a day’s delay could mean losing its place in line.

Perry said truckers had no way to deliver their goods and many had to find temporary storage space. The result, he said, was much longer lines Tuesday as the company tried to cram two days of work into one. He also said that sitting idle had cost a great deal of money, though he could not give an estimate.

“There’s a lot of overhead costs with the terminal sitting idle,” he said.