WASHINGTON, Oct 8: US President George Bush on Tuesday asked a court to suspend the strike at 29 Pacific ports that has cost America up to two billion dollars a day.

Shipping industry sources had earlier said they expected the administration to seek a court order in San Francisco to order shippers to reopen idled dockyards and for longshoremen to return to work.

“We understand that the government will go to court today (Tuesday) to seek an injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act,” said a source at the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shippers.

President Bush’s intervention in the 10-day-old standoff by going to court marks the first time a president has used his powers to end a work stoppage under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act in 25 years.

The law allows a president to end a labour dispute with an 80-day cooling off period that would order both sides to return to work if the stoppage damages vital national interests.

The closure began on Sept 29 when shippers locked out members of the dockworkers union after they allegedly staged a go-slow strike over a contract dispute.

Billions of dollars of goods — notably perishables or time-sensitive retail items and industrial parts — were languishing in dockyards and on ships as 200 boats hovered off the US west coast hoping for a break in the dispute.

The impact has rippled across the struggling US economy as well of those of its main Asian trading partners whose export-driven economies rely on the US market.

An economist who prepared a report for shipping bosses on the impact of the shutdown said that the cost to the United States of the closure would double from Tuesday to almost two billion dollars.

And the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation said the effects of the closure were being felt across US industries.

“In fact, because the seaports are one of the key bottlenecks of our economy (in a globalised economy), the negative impacts could further weaken the economic recovery currently underway,” it said.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors’ US subsidiary said Tuesday it would indefinitely suspend production at its Illinois plant and idle its 3,200 workers because of a parts shortage caused by the ports closure.

The auto factory is the second in the United states to halt production since the dockyards were shut.

But even if Bush invokes his rarely used power to end a labour dispute, the union — which claims that White House intervention is aimed at breaking the it — warned that its members would not work at full speed if forced back to work.

“Yeah, I guess it is a slow-up,” said James Spinosa, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union told reporters. “That’s the way we’re going to work.”

Economist George Huang of the economic develop corporation, said that action under the Taft-Hartley Act was “no substitute for a final agreement,” adding that workers could not be forced to be efficient.

Even if ports reopened immediately, it will take weeks of round-the-clock work to clear the cargo backlog in ports and to unload the stranded ships. —AFP