City council members Sawant, Licata, and OBrien are asking the Pacific Maritime Association to stop intimidation tactics like lockouts to get their way with workers.
City council members Sawant, Licata, and O'Brien are asking the Pacific Maritime Association to stop "intimidation tactics" like lockouts to get their way with workers. Don Wilson

Longshore workers have been unloading and loading cargo on ships in West Coast ports for seven months without a new union contract. On Thursday, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents the business side of the negotiation process with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), announced a partial work stoppage. They're halting loading and unloading operations across 29 ports for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, too.

Today, three Seattle City Council members—Kshama Sawant, Nick Licata, and Mike O'Brien—target the blame squarely at the PMA, in a letter that expresses "strong disappointment" in the industry's decision to lock out workers.

"To increase the profits of a few multinational corporations, you have cost the US economy up to $2 billion a day and made longshore workers lose wages," the letter reads.

In a statement earlier this week, the PMA blamed the union for "severely diminished productivity while the backlog of cargo at West Coast ports grows." Sawant, Licata, and O'Brien counter: "If you are concerned about these delays, however, why impose these lockouts, and why were crane crews cut last month?"

The rest of the letter urges the PMA to quit it with intimidation tactics. You can read the full statement here.