While relief was on its way to the Islands, President Bush took the first step toward intervening on behalf of the rest of the nation as a lockout of union dockworkers went into its second week.

The president authorized a board to present him with data tomorrow to justify ordering ports open for 80 days under the 1947 Taft-Hartley federal act. The act, last used by President Carter, provides a "cooling off" period in a national emergency that includes a risk to the U.S. economy.

Marathon negotiation sessions that lasted over the last four days broke off last night about 11:30 p.m. California time, after the International Longshore and Warehouse Union rejected the shipping company association's latest offer, according to a spokes man for the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the shipping companies.

"We put a comprehensive package on the table," said Steve Sugerman of the PMA. "President Bush had asked us to get back to work, and we thought this would do it."

Union representatives could not be reached for comment last night.

The PMA offer included a health plan with no employee pay portion and no deductibles, and a retirement package of $50,000 per year. It offered salaries that would make union members the highest paid blue-collar workers in the nation, Sugerman said.

It also provided job guarantees for current ILWU members as new technological measures are instituted. But it did not include the guarantees ILWU workers had been demanding: that new jobs created by new technologies be ILWU jobs as well.

"They're holding out on a fabulous contract for a handful of positions," Sugerman said. "They just walked out."

No date or time was set for negotiations to continue.

The nine ships that will be making their way to Hawai'i despite the shutdown, including five Matson vessels, are sailing as part of an exemption to the lockout granted to Hawai'i late Friday evening. Sugerman said late last night that the exemption is not in danger of being revoked.

Vance Lelli, spokesman for ILWU Local 23 in Tacoma, Wash., said the exemption is supposed to be for all cargo being shipped to Hawai'i.

"The exemption is for all cargo sent to Hawai'i; we are not aware of any cargo being restricted and there shouldn't be any cargo held back," Lelli said.

The PMA and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union also agreed Friday to grant an exemption to Alaska, which is also dependent upon goods brought by ship. Cargo is also being moved for the military.

CSX's Brian Taylor, vice president and general manager for Hawai'i and Guam, said that in addition to the Consumer, which was headed toward Hawai'i this morning, and the Navigator, which departs from Oakland for Honolulu tomorrow, two ships traveling from Tacoma to Los Angeles this week will also sail to Honolulu.

The Consumer, carrying more than 800 container loads of cargo, will arrive in Honolulu on Friday, Taylor said. The Navigator, which could carry nearly 1,000 container loads, will arrive on Sunday.

The CSX Trader and the CSX Reliance are to depart Tacoma this week for Los Angeles, then depart Los Angeles for Hawai'i on the weekend.

Schedules for the Trader and Reliance are not yet firm, Taylor said, but both should arrive in Honolulu by the weekend of October 18-20.

Matson is sending five ships scheduled to arrive on consecutive days beginning Saturday and continuing through Oct. 16.

CSX Lines is also moving ships to Alaska under the exemption granted to that state.

Meanwhile, Guam's Lt. Gov. Madeleine Z. Bordallo has asked Bush to intervene in the port shutdown, which she said could lead to serious shortages of necessities for the 150,000 residents of this U.S. territory.

"The continued interruption of exports from the West Coast is, for our people, more than a matter of economic dislocation," Bordallo wrote to Bush. "It would disrupt the daily livelihood for thousands of American families in our community."

Guam congressional Delegate Robert Underwood turned to Adm. Thomas Fargo and Air Force Maj. Gen. Mike Wiedemer for help.

Fargo, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, and Wiedemer, director of the Defense Commissary Agency, pledged to explore the possibility of transporting civilian cargo to Guam aboard vessels normally used to ship goods to military installations, Underwood said Saturday.

A second week of a West Coast port shutdown will cause a noticeable increase in plant closings, job losses and financial market turmoil, say analysts and business leaders who are increasingly skeptical of a quick end to the labor dispute.

Already, storage facilities at beef, pork and poultry processing facilities nationwide are full, crammed with produce that can't be exported.

With nowhere to move their product, plant operators will begin shutting down today and layoffs will follow, said Mary Kay Thatcher, public policy director of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

In less than two weeks, if the shutdown continues, manufacturing plants will be grinding to a halt nationwide, farmers will be up in arms, and Asian equity and currency markets could face a full-blown crisis, said Steven Cohen, a University of California-Berkeley professor of regional planning.

"It's like draining a swamp. You start seeing all kinds of ugly creatures," he said.

Talks between the PMA and the ILWU entered a fourth day yesterday.

Sugerman said before the stalemate that the PMA would keep pushing for an extension of the old contract, which specifically forbade the kind of work slowdowns the PMA said prompted the lockout Sept. 29. The union has refused, holding out for a new three-year contract that would give it control over any jobs that come with new technology.

Implementing labor-saving technology such as electronic tracking devices puts only a small number of jobs at risk in the short term, but future jobs are at stake, as well as control of the flow of information at the ports.

The PMA has always given the ILWU jurisdiction over new technology in the past, union negotiator Joseph Wenzl said yesterday.

Although both sides have agreed to resume shipping essential items to Alaska and Hawai'i, there will be no more exceptions to the shutdown, Sugerman said.

The number of cargo vessels stranded at the docks or backing up at anchor points has risen to about 200 since the lockout, with dozens more still en route from Asia.