Dive Brief:

• Shippers who move goods through the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are worried as two labor groups appear close to action that could shutter facilities.
• Drivers who work for the port's three largest drayage companies, as well as the longshoremen's union that loads and unloads ships at the nation's busiest shipping hub, are engaged in battles with port management. 
• The biggest threat to the food industry is in produce. An eight-day work stoppage at the port in 2012 left thousands of boxes of fruit rotting on the piers.

Dive Insight:

When drayage drivers halted work a few days ago, an arbitrator told the longshoremen they had to return to work rather than honor the drivers' action.

Now the biggest question centers on talks between the longshoremen and the port. And time is running out. The union has agreed to extend its contract and keep working only until Friday morning.