I have a new article up at The Nation on how longshore workers turned a threat to their job security into a crisis for their city:

On September 16, 200 longshore workers and supporters lined up outside the sheriff’s office in Longview, Washington, and announced they were ready to turn themselves in for arrest. For thirty minutes, they stood in the parking lot with their hands behind their backs as sheriff’s deputies photographed them from above. Dozens of longshore workers had already been arrested for trespassing and blocking railroad tracks in defense of their jobs. Deputies declined to arrest any of the workers in the parking lot that morning, but hours later they resumed tracking down and arresting longshore workers throughout the city—at home, at gas stations, outside a church—for repeatedly halting commerce through the Longview port.

Check it out.