Update: LA and Long Beach port strikers resume negotiations

Update 3:56 p.m.:

Contract talks between clerical workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and shippers have resumed as the strike entered a sixth day on Sunday.

Previously:

The opposing parties in the week-long strike at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles may begin to talk again Sunday. Other union workers have honored the striking clerks. The resulting slowdown has cost the busy complex about a billion dollars a day, port officials say.

Art Wong, spokesman for the Port of Long Beach, says the reputation of the port is at stake.

"We see ourselves as a reliable customer service port complex that is supported by labor, shipping lines and the railroad and warehouse industry and we want it to be a reliable dependable industry," he said. 

Ships are backed up waiting in the harbor, and four of ships that should have been gone by now are still parked at the dock because they are unable to get their cargo unloaded. The strike has closed 10 of the two ports’ 14 cargo terminals.