Negotiators hoping to head off a potentially crippling West Coast dock strike continued to talk even after the contract for 10,500 longshore workers expired at 5 p.m. Monday.

Both sides said contract talks will continue as long as necessary, as pressure mounted from Congress to avoid a strike or work slowdown at 29 major West Coast seaports, including the Port of Oakland.

The outcome could have a significant bearing on the U.S. economy because 90 percent of the nation's international trade moves on the water. West Coast ports handled $260 billion worth of cargo in 2001, according to the Pacific Maritime Association.

"We have an enormous responsibility to negotiate an agreement without any work interruption on the waterfront," said Joseph Miniace, president and chief executive officer of the PMA in San Francisco. PMA, which represents shipping lines, maritime terminal operators and other employers, said in a statement Monday it will not lock out dockworkers laboring without a contract unless there is a significant work slowdown.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents dockworkers, has not authorized a strike vote. Union spokesman Steve Stallone told the Associated Press that organizing a strike vote would take weeks.

West Coast ports were last struck in 1971, when longshoremen staged a 134-day walkout. In 1999, contract talks went on two weeks beyond the expiration of the previous pact, and work slowdowns hit some ports, including Oakland.

In the event of a strike, President Bush could impose an 80-day cooling off period by invoking the Taft-Hartley Act.

by David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer

Port Talks Continue Past Deadline
Extracted from The Los Angeles Times

Negotiations between transpacific shipping companies and dockworkers continued as the three-year contract covering all U.S. ports along the West Coast expired at 5 p.m. (PST Monday, July 1)