Lobngshoreman

By Staff for CBS 2. More than 1,000 longshoremen walked off the job at area ports Friday afternoon. During the walkout, which lasted several hours, overseas shipments stuck at ports in New York City, Elizabeth, Newark and Jersey City. The ports handle a total of 3.3 million containers a year, WCBS 880’s Peter Haskell reported. The Port Authority closed the terminals to incoming trucks, causing heavy traffic backups. One truck driver was able to get into the Bayonne port, but then he wasn’t allowed out, Haskell reported. “The ILA and the New York Shipping Association – our employers, it’s not just the workers, but also the owners of the companies that generate the jobs and generates money for the economy, both sides have been fighting the Waterfront Commission, especially in the last five years, over the right to bring new workers on, the right to operate their ports the way they think they should be operated,” Jim McNamara of the International Longshoreman’s Association told 1010 WINS. “They’ve had enough, they told me they’re taking this action to demonstrate their displeasure.”