Anti-Wall Street activists march on West Coast ports

Thousands of protesters marched on ports from California to Alaska in rallies seen as a test of the Occupy movement’s momentum, hoping to draw attention to economic inequality and a financial system they say is unfairly skewed toward the wealthy.
Demonstrators succeeded in disrupting arrivals of trucks and dockworkers at some waterfronts along the coast, effectively closing two terminals in Oregon and a third in Washington state and disrupting port operations in Oakland.

“Whose ports? Our ports!” a crowd of around 1 000 activists chanted in Oakland, long an Occupy hot spot, as they paraded before dawn from a transit station to the city’s cargo port and split into groups to try to block terminal entrances.
The long-planned action comes after the Occupy movement that began in New York in September has seen its tent camps in most big West Coast cities dismantled in police raids, leaving the movement looking to regain its footing.

But by dark, demonstrators had largely failed to cause the large-scale halt to West Coast commerce some had sought, and several dozen protesters had been arrested along the coast.
The largest rallies unfolded in Oakland, where protesters had hoped to stage a repeat of a previous protest that briefly succeeded in shuttering its port, the nation’s fifth busiest container port by volume.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said the port protest, far from helping the working class, was actually harming her city and workers. By Monday evening, police said about 500 protesters were still standing on a road used by trucks at the port.

“People have to think about the consequences of the shutdown,” Quan said. “I think the ruling class is laughing right now.”
Throughout the day, operations at several of the Port of Oakland’s seven terminals were disrupted and delayed, and a few terminals closed early, the facility said in a statement.
Former Marine Scott Olsen, whose injury during clashes between Oakland police and demonstrators in October gave fresh impetus to protests, later led an afternoon march in Oakland.

Occupy Oakland spokesman Mike King called the blockade a success, saying cargo traffic at the port was limited to just two vessels in anticipation of the demonstration, and that longshoremen and Teamsters were largely absent from work.

“Nobody crossed the picket line, and most truckers stayed away,” King said, adding that the only cargo loaded onto trucks in the terminal yards was material already taken off ships.
The port’s executive director, Omar Benjamin, acknowledged “sporadic disruptions” but insisted the facility had remained operational throughout the day. Police reported two arrests.

Workers affected by the protests were divided.
“It’s not good for the economy,” said Agustin Luna (39), an independent trucker waiting in his big rig to deliver a load of alfalfa to a ship in Oakland bound for Japan. — Reuters.