Farm products languish on docks

A weeklong shutdown of the West Coast's major ports has left stacks of market-bound farm produce to rot on the docks and in the holds of ships that can't reach shore.

As contract talks continued between the dockworkers union and shipping lines Saturday, about 1.3 billion apples were awaiting shipment to Asia, nearly 8,000 tons of frozen meat from Australia sat in untouched shipping containers, and hundreds of tons of other fruit and food products remained far from intended markets.

About 5 million pounds of yellow, red, pearl and other onions grown in the Northwest are in danger of becoming moldy, said Del Allen, president of Allports Forwarding, a cargo booking business for farm products.

Each day it continues, the shutdown is costing the U.S. economy an estimated $2 billion, and for many farmers, it comes at the worst possible time -- the peak of the fall harvest.

"By not having product being shipped to customers, you're also not receiving money," said John Rotteveel, who grows and packs almonds in Dixon, Calif., and exports about 90 percent of his crop.

White House warning

On Saturday, as representatives of dockworkers and management began their third consecutive day of meetings with a federal mediator in San Francisco, the White House warned both sides to resolve their differences.

"The president's message to labor and management is simple: You are hurting the economy," press secretary Ari Fleischer said while traveling with President Bush in New Hampshire.

Two senior administration officials said Bush was considering appointing a board of inquiry into the lockout, a potential first step toward ordering workers back to their jobs for 80 days under the Taft-Hartley Act. Shippers have urged Bush to use the act, but several unions have spoken out against it.

The contract dispute between shipping lines and dockworkers -- largely over benefits, the arbitration process and whether jobs created by new technology will be unionized -- has sent ripples through nation's agriculture industry, causing slowdowns of the harvest, and in some cases, layoffs.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway stopped grain shipments to the West Coast on Tuesday to avoid further congestion at the ports, said a railway spokesman.