Draymen and beneficial cargo owners are shouldering burden and cost of congestion.
A member of the leadership of the National Industrial Transportation League is calling for a moratorium on demurrage and detention charges at West Coast ports.
Don Pisano, the chairman of the ocean committee of the NIT League, the nation’s largest shipper organization, said the exchange of accusations by the Pacific Maritime Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union on Monday afternoon was “not encouraging at all.”
“From a shipper’s perspective, it is maddening that while the PMA and ILWU can both make their own accusations against the other as to the causes of the congestion at the West Coast ports, the real burden and cost is being put onto the local draymen and the beneficial cargo owners, neither of whom has any ability to impact the negotiations one way or the other,” said Pisano, who is president and secretary of the American Coffee Corp. in Jersey City, N.J and a member of the board of directors and chairman of the traffic and warehouse committee of the Green Coffee Association, Inc.
“It is completely misguided for either party to think that causing pain and frustration to the local drayman trying to eke out a living will somehow win their support or the support of the beneficial cargo owners,” Pisano told American Shipper. “And both the PMA and the ILWU are giving BCO’s plenty of reasons to rethink their supply chains to determine whether they can avoid west coast ports altogether or at least significantly reduce their reliance on unreliable partners.”
“It is also grossly unfair for the terminals to charge demurrage or detention charges against containers when the drayman cannot get into the terminals to pickup or deliver. I know of no other industry that can, nor would, assess a punitive charge against a customer for the principal’s own failure to provide the service to that customer.”
“Speaking on behalf of shippers, we call upon the ILWU to work with management in providing the necessary skilled labor required to get us through this deplorable situation. We also call upon the carriers and terminal operators to put a moratorium on all demurrage and detention charges until the situation returns to normal.”
On Monday, the PMA said it would no longer operate night shifts to unload vessels in the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, a move that the ILWU said was “illogical.”
“Cancelling night shifts and reducing bulk operations will do nothing to ease the congestion crisis,” the union said.
PMA said Tuesday “ILWU leaders have suggested the PMA is worsening congestion at Southern California ports as a result of recent management decisions. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, PMA and its member companies are seeking to mitigate the impact of ILWU slowdowns that have now lasted for 10 weeks.
“The ILWU likes to ask why it makes sense to cut labor in order to clear congestion. The answer is straightforward: ILWU slowdowns have worsened the congestion at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, bringing terminals close to gridlock. With many terminal yards already at more than 90% of capacity, there is limited room for additional cargo to be offloaded. As a result, PMA has made the targeted and prudent decision to limit the number of containers that are offloaded at night, in order to enable terminals to focus night operations on clearing existing congestion in the yards,” PMA said.
Steve Getzug, a PMA spokesman added “When we talk capacity, we’re primarily talking about available space for containers, but other factors can influence whether a terminal can satisfactorily operate at levels in the 90 percent range. Factors that can influence operations include yard crane productivity, the availability of yard crane operators, labor to operate equipment, gate operations, rail ops, M&R, etc. Most cases 90 percent of capacity is workable if things are functioning normally. The issue here is congestion and union’s refusal to dispatch the yard crane operators we need.”
“Of course, none of this would be necessary if the ILWU had not made the unilateral decision on Nov. 3, 2014 to change 15 years of precedent and severely restrict the number of yard crane operators it would dispatch. The ILWU’s slowdown, which came at a time when contract talks had stalled, severely worsened existing congestion, which ILWU leaders knew would be the case,” PMA said.
“Employers, whose customers are being harmed every day by the near-gridlock at the ports, have no reason to harm productivity. The Union, on the other hand, has a tried-and-true history of using slowdowns as a pressure tactic during contract negotiations.”
PMA said it is continuing “to call on the ILWU to stop the targeted slowdowns and resume normal dispatch of yard crane operators. If that takes place, PMA can resume normal operations during all shifts”
NIT League leader asks for moratorium on West Coast demurrage and detention charges
