US dockworkers are stopping work across the West Coast of America for eight hours on May Day to call for the end of the US war in Iraq.

Members of the the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to call a stop work in protest to what they call an "imperial action for oil in which the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi citizens are being wasted".

International Workers Day will be dubbed a "no peace, no work" holiday as the wharfies, some of whom are Vietnam veterans, make a political statement to the US government.

The protest comes just before contract negotiations and the union is preparing for the possibility of conflict during the negotiation period.

The last time the stevedores were in negotiations was in 2002 when they were threatened by the Bush administration that the ports would be occupied by troops if any actions were carried out by the workers because it would threaten "national security".

What happened instead was that the employers locked the workers out for 11 days then the men and women were forced back to work under the Taft-Hartley Act, which creates and enforces favourable conditions of work for the employer.

Dockworkers in the US have been vocal opponents to the war in Iraq since it began and have suffered the brunt of police violence against them on their picket lines.

May Day will be a call to all US anti-war protesters, workers and their unions alike to stand up in opposition to US involvement in Iraq.