One of the first things you notice walking the streets of San Pedro these days is nearly every business – whether a café, a new vape shop, a Crossfit gym, or a barbershop – has posted a blue and white sign out front that says, “We Support the ILWU & They Support Us." One coffee shop has four signs posted in its windows.

“This is the city of the port," said Junior Ramirez, the owner of The Shop Barbers. "We need those guys working. We need those ships empty.”

Next door, Louis Lee, who runs JD Hobbies, said anybody who doesn't have a union sign in the window would be shunned.

"There’s no doubt," he said. "It doesn’t behoove you to be against them.”

About one in three people in San Pedro are associated with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, according to Dave Arian, vice president of the Port of Los Angeles Harbor Commission. They work for the union, retired from the union or have a relative who works for the union.

A billion plus

“My dad was a longshoreman. My daughter works on the waterfront. My sister retired off the waterfront,” said Arian, who worked 44 years on the docks and was an ILWU President. "But there are some families who have five generations and 30 people down here.

“The payroll for Southern California is a billion plus," he said, "and that money then circulates through the community."

And as powerful as the ILWU is in its hometown, the small union of about 18,000 workers and retirees can do more than bankrupt a coffee shop. It has the power to cripple the economy.

The effects of a labor standoff at West Coast ports have been felt around the world. Each side is blaming the other for a slowdown of goods: Shippers say workers are slowing down; workers blame a shortage of truck chassis.

In any case, the result is huge: Car assembly lines in the Midwest are missing crucial parts, billions of dollars worth of produce are rotting before it reaches Europe, a shortage of French Fries has hit Japan.

Since July, 20,000 ILWU West Coast dockworkers have worked without a contract. The vast majority work at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the ILWU.

The union won't say exactly what it's bargaining for – and members are banned from talking to the press – but a key issue in negotiations has been the right of the ILWU to choose an arbitrator to settle disputes. Wages and benefits don't seem to be a sticking point.

'The ILWU is the American dream'

Shipping companies say dockworkers have average pay of $147,000 per year. Arian said if you take out a few specialized, higher-paying positions, the average annual salary is closer to $80,000. Either way, it's a good salary, especially for non-college grads.

Arian said the union can negotiate good wages in part because it has the power to shut down all 29 West Coast ports, unlike the much larger International Longshoremen's Association, which represents 65,000 longshoremen on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and generally negotiates contracts individually.

“I don’t believe longshoremen are any more militant than autoworkers were or mineworkers were," said Arian. "But we have something they didn’t have: a strategic position where you can choke off capital.”

Arian is well aware that the ILWU is an anomaly, a throwback to the days when blue-collar workers could routinely join a union and live a comfortable middle-class life, complete with a generous pension and full benefits.

About one in three American workers were part of a union in the mid-1950s. Last year, just one in 10 were, the lowest number in nearly a century.

“The ILWU is the American dream,” Arian said.

And everybody knows it.

360,000 applicants for 16,000 spots

Arian said the last time the union opened the rolls to new members, it got 360,000 applications. That was 10 years ago.

The union resorted to a lottery to pick about 16,000 "casuals": people hired to do overflow work full-fledged members don’t want, sometimes just one day a week. Casuals can work as long as a decade before they graduate to full "class-B" membership.

But there are lucky ones, like Carol Randolph, who was only a casual for a year and a half.

“I’m kind of embarrassed to say it," said Randolph. "My son has a casual card now, and he’s been there seven years.”

Randolph’s father-in-law and uncles were in the ILWU, and her brother and brother in law are still in it now. Both of her sons are casuals, and so is her daughter. She raised all three as a single parent, working at the docks.

“This job has provided me with a decent home, clothes for my kids, food on the table, and they went to college," said Randolph. "We’re not going to Europe on vacation, but we do take vacations.”

Randolph has enough seniority now that she can take one of the most desirable jobs – a vessel planner — but she says the stakes are high.

“We pretty much decide on what order the containers will have to be coming off the shift," said Randolph. "If you don’t do it right, you can break the ship. Literally break the ship. The dangerous cargo that has hazardous explosives has to stored in certain positions.”

Waiting for your number

Those who work less specialized jobs have a harder time getting shifts, especially right now, with shippers cutting premium overtime work to put pressure on the union to end the dispute.

Three times a day, longshoremen crowd inside ILWU Local 13’s union hall hoping their number will be called so they can work. Outside, Abel Brady sat dejected Wednesday. Once again, his number wasn’t called.

“I came down here tonight to get a job, and I didn’t get it," Brady said. "We have to have so many hours to get our benefits. If we don’t get those hours, we don’t get our benefits.”

Like everyone else in San Pedro and beyond, Brady is hoping the dispute will be over soon and a new contract will be signed.

"It doesn't just affect us," he said. "It affects the whole world."

This week, U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez met with both sides in San Francisco. He called the meetings positive and productive, but no agreement was announced.