The Occupy Wall Street movement coordinated several protests Monday

At one entrance onto Harbor Island, protesters formed a physical barricade by tossing wood pallets, metal and other debris into a large pile on the street, and blocked trucks and other traffic from entering.moncler jackets Some protesters stood atop the barricade while others swarmed around, cheering and chanting about revolution before a clash with police in which 11 people were arrested.

The Occupy Wall Street movement coordinated several protests Monday to shut down ports up and down the West Coast, including Portland, Oakland, Longview and Vancouver, B.C. Organizers said the goal was to stand up for union workers and to hit large banks where it hurts by gumming up their commerce. Union leaders, however, did not endorse Monday's demonstrations.

The makeshift barricade, at Klickitat Avenue Southwest and Southwest Spokane Street in the shadow of the West Seattle Bridge, was the sight of the only major confrontation between police and protesters. Police officers on bicycles and on horseback moved in and pushed the crowd out of the street. Officers tossed two or three loud smoke bombs into the crowd, which caused people to scatter and wafted a throat-stinging irritant into the air.

Police said one officer was injured after protesters threw flares, paint and rebar. A seattlepi.com reporter witnessed one burning flare thrown at police during the confrontation, as officers ordered the protesters to move and began wading into the crowd.

Hundreds of people had marched from downtown to the Port of Seattle and targeted Terminal 18, which is operated by SSA Marine, a company largely owned by international bank Goldman Sachs, organizers said. Protesters swarmed around one entrance at 3:15 p.m. and blocked it, clogging the road to the port and lower Spokane Street bridge with tractor-trailers and cars.

Protesters managed to keep truck traffic out of the terminal until it closed at its normally scheduled time of 4:15 p.m., Port spokeswoman Charla Skaggs said.

Down the road, the makeshift barricade didn't affect any commerce at the port, Skaggs said. But the barricade kept several truckers from getting back to the company office to drop off their trucks and pick up their personal cars to head home.

In a statement, port officials said nearly 22,000 people work in jobs created by the cargo that comes through the port.

"Just one day's wages for those jobs total $1.9 million – dollars that can't be earned if they can't go to work," the statement said. "Money is tight for many of us, particularly at this time of year, and those who work the port's docks must be able to do their jobs."

Still, many truck drivers honked in support as they drove past. But there were also people driving by who expressed their frustration.

One trucker, interviewed while he waited in the long line of traffic, said he supported the Occupy movement's message.cheap moncler jackets But when asked if he thought it work, he responded, "I don't know, do you think it will work?"

The Occupy movement began in October to protest corporate greed and the social irresponsibility of Wall Street banks. Their battle cry became, "We are the 99 percent," referring to the divide between average workers and the concentration of wealth in the top 1 percent of Americans.

"I think the reason why people do this is to raise the visibility and awareness of these problems," Braden Pence said Monday while watching as police escorted arrestees to a van.

"Once we get into a solution-based phase of this movement, we'll have answers and start going to politicians with actual changes to make," said Pence, who quit his job as judicial clerk to serve as a legal adviser to the movement. "But this just started a couple of months ago. The civil rights movement took 20 years to lead to serious change."
Earlier Monday, longshoremen at the Longview port went home for the day, essentially shutting down the terminal after an Occupy Wall Street demonstration. Several dozen protesters in Bellingham blocked railroad tracks for much of the day.

The International Longshore & Warehouse Union sent home its Longview workers out of concern for their health and safety, spokeswoman Jennifer Sargent said.

"Our people are willing and able to go to work," Sargent said.

However, Port of Longview spokeswoman Ashley Helenberg said both the port and the union decided to shut down operations. She said about 20 jobs would be affected. The port was handling one ship Monday.

Union workers would be paid for four hours of work, the union said.

The Longview rally lasted about 90 minutes and numbered about 100 people. It was among a series of coordinated Occupy Wall Street protests at the West Coast's busiest ports. Demonstrators hoped the rallies would cut into the profits of the corporations that run the docks.

The protests also hit terminals at ports in Oakland, Calif., and Portland, Ore., though it wasn't immediately clear how much the shutdowns would affect operations and what the economic loss would be.

Union leadership in Washington has said they are sympathetic to the demands of the Occupy Wall Street movement giubbotti moncler but don't support Monday's actions.

In Longview, the longshoremen's union and the port have been engaged in a protracted labor dispute, and the union president said the Occupy movement was co-opting that fight.

"As the Occupy movement, which began in September 2011, sweeps this country, there is a real danger that forces outside of the ILWU will attempt to adopt our struggle as their own," ILWU president Robert McEllrath said in a statement posted on the union's website Saturday.