GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen murdered Guatemala's main port union chief in front of his two young children, police said on Tuesday.

Several men carrying 9-mm guns shot union boss Pedro Zamora as he drove home to Escuintla, two hours south of the capital late Monday night, police spokeswoman Olimpia Pineda said. Two of Zamora's children, aged 3 and 5, were in the car at the time of the attack.

Zamora's 3-year-old son was injured in the shooting, Pineda said. The motive for the murder is unknown, she said.

Zamora, 43, led the 500-member union at Puerto Quetzal, the country's main port, for eight years and had received death threats.

Union organizers were often targeted as leftist guerrilla sympathizers and murdered during the Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended a decade ago and left a quarter million people dead or missing.

Political violence against labor leaders has decreased in recent years, but many leftist groups regularly receive death threats.

"This is the second time one of our members has been attacked," union secretary Lazaro Reyes told Reuters. Another union leader was shot in the chest six months ago and survived. That case has not been solved.

"It's hard to work under these circumstances, you don't know what could happen next," Reyes said.

Labor rights groups said the port was negotiating a new labor contract with the union when Zamora was killed.

Guatemala is a major transshipment point for Colombian cocaine moving to the United States and sees hundreds of drug gang-style executions every year.

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