The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has been orchestrating work slowages at ports along the West Coast for months.  Contracts between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), negotiator for businesses in maritime agreements with the ILWU, expired in July and they have yet to reach a new agreement.

The Center for Worker Freedom’s Matt Patterson discussed the terror these slowages are bringing to the economy recently in Fox News Opinion, where he wrote:

“Also being devastated by the ILWU’s intransigence is the California agriculture community. The West Coast ports are the gateway of American produce to the rest of the world, and The New York Times is reporting that California citrus growers have “lost $500 million in export business since November” because containers of fruit sit for days on end on the pier rotting away, as apt a metaphor as you are likely to find for what organized labor does to an economy.

So what’s really going on here?

Merriam-Webster defines a blockade as an act designed “to stop people or supplies from entering or leaving (a port or country).”  Blockades, of course, are traditionally considered acts of war.”

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