It has to be the strangest strike in the nation.

The strikers earn six-figure salaries. There are so few of them that they must enlist help to mount picket lines. And although the walkout is taking place at the second busiest port in the nation, few outside of the harbor area even seem aware that it is under way.

However unusual it may be, the 10-week-old strike by harbor pilots, who escort tankers and containerships through the harbor’s waters, has become business-as-usual at the Port of Los Angeles. And the dispute shows little sign of ending anytime soon.

“Our members will return to work when they are given a fair offer, and not before. We have very strong resolve,” said Beth Garfield, an attorney and spokeswoman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 68, which represents the port’s 15 harbor pilots.

Whether or not that makes any difference is a matter of dispute. While Local 68 takes credit for disrupting port operations, harbor officials claim that there has been little effect at all.

Local 68 walked off the job July 11 in a salary dispute with the city of L.A. The pilots, who are city employees and earn $113,000 a year, were asking for a 72 percent increase over two years, to $195,000 which they said would bring them more in line with what pilots at other major ports are earning.

The city offered a more modest 17 percent boost, to $133,000, over four years.

After two months of stalled negotiations, the pilots recently reduced their wage demands, and are now asking for $164,000 over the next three years. Garfield says that is probably as low as the pilots who so far have lost more $21,000 each in salary are willing to go.

But in one of the strike’s more unusual aspects, the port is under no apparent pressure to give in to the pilots’ demands.

Two management pilots and three pilots who broke from the union have been moving ships into and out of the harbor with only minor delays, according to port and shipping officials.

Other than a few scheduling hassles, “it has pretty much been business as usual,” said port spokeswoman Barbara Yamamoto.

As for the pilots’ recent compromise offer, “we’re sticking to our original offer,” she said.

The strike has had “practically no impact” on operations, added Robert D. Kleist, corporate advisor to Evergreen America Corp., the large Korean-flagged shipping line. “We’ve had no serious delays. We have not had any problems as far as our terminal is concerned.”

Union officials counter that the port and shipping executives are simply trying to put a happy face on an increasingly difficult situation.

“Ships are late everyday,” said Kevin Schroeder, spokesman for ILWU Local 13, which represents dockworkers at the Port of L.A. “I question how long these five pilots can keep up the pace. This is not going to go on indefinitely.”

After weeks of laying low in the pilot dispute, Local 13 and L.A.’s other longshore union, Local 63, jumped into the fray earlier this month, joining them in picketing the pilot house and the harbor department headquarters. On Sept. 12, the two locals contributed $120,000 to the pilots’ strike fund.

The entry of the other union members altered the tone of the strike.

Rather than confronting a handful of striking pilots sitting quietly on beach chairs in front of the port administration building, port employees were faced with more than 100 pickets chanting loudly, blocking driveways and obstructing office doorways.

The city, charging that the demonstrations were too aggressive, brought the locals to court and on Sept. 12 received a temporary restraining order prohibiting the pickets from, among other things, “molesting, assaulting, pushing, elbowing, shouldering or in any other manner unreasonably and intentionally physically contacting the person or clothing of any city employee… (or) port pilot.”

Since then, the demonstrations have consisted of about 100 pickets mostly dockworkers on their days off carrying signs and walking slow, quiet circles around the port headquarters.

Tension between the pickets and port administrators may be high, but it’s nothing compared with the striking pilots and their former comrades who have returned to work.

“It’s extremely tense; the feelings run very deep,” said Garfield.

Repairing those shattered relationships will not be easy, she added.

“The pilots who have been out on strike have sacrificed a lot,” Garfield said. “When the dispute is over, those who have continued working will receive the same benefits. But they have not been part of the struggle.”

All the pilots have had extensive careers at sea, as tugboat captains, first mates or ship captains. The youngest of the L.A. pilots is in his mid-30s; the oldest in his late 50s. Most are relatively new to city employment, having been hired in the 1990s. The staff has been stable since 1993.

The striking pilots and their supporters boast that the reduction in piloting manpower has forced the port to cease operating between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.

“This used to be a round-the-clock port,” said Schroeder. “It is no longer a 24-hour-a-day operation.”

The U.S. Coast Guard, which has ultimate control over marine safety, requires that the five working pilots have at least 10 consecutive hours of rest each day, according to Cmdr. Mike Moore, chief of port operations. As a result, he said, the five working pilots generally have not been on the job during evening or graveyard shifts.

But Moore added that the impact of that scheduling change has been slight, because the bulk of the port’s traffic occurs between the hours of 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

“The peak periods have been covered during the whole strike,” he said. “The bulk of the ships are making it to the pier and leaving the pier close to as planned. Those with unusual movement times are having to modify their schedules. If somebody wanted to get under way at 3 a.m., they probably couldn’t do it.”

Despite the uproar in the harbor area, the plight of the pilots has not resonated with the majority of Angelenos.

“It’s a very unusual strike,” said Kent Wong, director of UCLA’s Center for Labor Resrach and Education. “It involves a small group of workers who are very highly skilled and very highly paid. In some ways it’s comparable to professional sports or entertainment unions.”

Some observers question how long the pilots can remain on strike without hurting their own cause. After all, if the port can get by with five pilots doing the work of 16, it suggests that the operation may have been overstaffed to begin with.

“They still have some leverage. It’s not like they can pull in temps off the street,” said Wong.

“But actions like this always involve a risk. Clearly, the air traffic controllers thought it would be hard to replace them. And look what happened to them.”