Striking out.

Workers fence out trade with picket lines.

LATELY, IT'S BECOME STRIKE-OF-THE-MONTH SEASON IN Latin America. Pick any point on the regional compass, and you'll find someone, somewhere thumbing their nose at the boss: customs workers in Brazil, public workers and farmers in Costa Rica and, in Argentina, airline, truck and other transportation workers.

Latin American strikes were once little more than annoyances, bugs buzzing in a room in the middle of the night. I recall a bus drivers' strike in Sao Paulo that kept me waiting four hours in traffic to drive a little more than 10 miles. I was less than thrilled to find driving into the city was going to take half as long as the entire flight from the United States to Brazil, but my patience wound up the only victim.

"I think you picked a bad time," the taxista informed me as we sat in traffic, listening to Daniela Mercury on the radio, enviously watching bicycles and pedestrians whiz by.

Nowadays in the region, however, work actions are becoming more than simple annoyances. A truckers' strike earlier this year stopped about 60% of the cargo headed to Brazil's busiest port, Santos. There's no tally yet on the cost of a later customs strike in Brazil, or of transportation stoppages in Costa Rica or Argentina.

Playing nice. Until a year or so ago, angry workers tended to give advance notice of strikes, usually with more lead time than a publicity drive for a Hollywood blockbuster. Not only that, but the strikes were scattered and staggered, breaking out at one port one day, then another the next. Shipping lines, importers and exporters simply worked their schedules around the strikes, and life--as well as cargo--moved on.

Wildcat strikes are becoming more common. And the stoppages reach farther. The workers are hitting groups of ports or whole networks--like the Brazilian national trucking system. Too, increasing numbers of government workers are getting involved. No longer can the shipping industry simply plan its way around labor's roadblocks. When customs agents stage a national strike, for example, cargo backs up everywhere. The shippers and lines are stuck, since they can't just go to another port as they would to avoid a local dock strike.

"The strikes are getting out of control," says Manny Fernandez, head of Latin American operations for the APL shipping line. "They are hampering our ability to serve the region."

It would be easy if all the workers were protesting against the same perceived injustices, or if the involved governments or companies could or would do what was necessary to remedy the problems. But in Latin America's logistics chain, the shortest line is not necessarily the straightest.

Deadwood docks. Many port workers in Latin America are afraid they are going to lose their jobs--and their fears are well-founded. Many will. The governments have turned state-run docks over to private companies, which are starting to run the piers as money-making businesses. That means the end of bloated payrolls in Latin America, where port workforces have more deadwood than a petrified forest.

The sensible thing is to retrain the downsized workers and keep them off the jobless rolls. Many new private port owners and government agencies have started to realize that. But the workers are understandably suspicious. They prefer the good ol' days when a berthed ship guaranteed them a good paycheck and make-work policies required 10 workers for a job that required, maybe, four. Go to any major, or minor, Latin American port even today and you'll see whole troops of workers sleeping in containers, making double-time pay. In some ports, employees even give their work permits to friends or relatives who fill in for them while they take the day off.

Understandably, workers balk at giving up such job security. But they must if the ports are to become efficient. In exchange, port operators and governments must do a better job of retraining and placing the ousted longshoremen.

For their part, trucker complaints about high tolls and fuel prices--as well as long lines for cargo at ports--ring true. The Brazilian government has been trying to renegotiate with the road concession operators to bring down the tolls. Fuel prices, though, are out of its control.

Worst of all, the region's governments have done little to stop the strikes by public employees. These strikes tend to do some of the most serious damage. When customs agents stop working, all cargo--regardless of the type--stops moving.

And that is a bad time to trade with a country.