ILWU and employers meet Wednesday, but problems worsen in Seattle and Tacoma.
A slowdown by members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is continuing to snarl traffic at West Coast ports and frustrate both importers and exporters.
While congestion has been worsening at Southern California ports for about a month, problems spread to the Port of Seattle and Port of Tacoma last Friday.
The Pacific Maritime Association said Monday productivity in those two ports has plummeted due to “orchestrated slowdowns” by the ILWU. The two ports handle an estimated 16 percent of containerized cargo on the West Coast.
Some terminal executives says that the ILWU is also doing more rigorous inspections of drayage trucks in Los Angeles and Long Beach to put pressure on employers as they seek to negotiate a new contract with the ILWU to replace a labor agreement that expired on July 1.
The ILWU accused the PMA of trying to smear the union, and it blamed congestion on a shortage of truck drivers, rail capacity, the decision by shipping lines to divest themselves of their chassis fleets, and not arranging to have enough chassis during peak season.
Despite the tough words directed at each other, the union and PMA met again at the bargaining table on Wednesday in San Francisco.
In a press release issued Thursday, the Port of Oakland said it was “positioned to increase its cargo volume in California’s turbulent container shipping market.”
Port officials said Oakland does not have the level of congestion currently delaying cargo in Southern California, and they said available capacity is bolstered by the addition of new cargo handling equipment and that it has a satisfactory supply of chassis.
A port executive said an Asian-based container shipping line will divert one of its vessels next week with Oakland as a first port of call replacing Los Angeles. That means the vessel will make Oakland its first West Coast stop for discharge of imports from Asia.
Tara Mattina, a spokesperson for the Port of Tacoma, said that the port was experiencing some significant issues with the productivity of ship-to-shore cranes, and that terminal operators were releasing longshore crews — sending them home — about halfway through shifts because work was so slow.
She said most of the terminals were remaining open and were continuing to maintain yard and gate crews. But there were notices being placed on websites like www.piertrucker.com about terminals closing temporarily or limiting operations.
Mattina said some terminals were running out of space, and the port was trying to find space to store exports arriving at the terminals.
“We are hoping that they will resolve this quickly,” he said.
Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, said the port problems were injuring farmers, providing a statement from a potato grower who said he was concerned about a possible lockout during what he said is the peak refrigerated cargo shipping season from the Pacific Northwest.
“As it stands right now, I have potatoes I am shipping to many countries (nearly 50 containers just this week alone). So far, I have shipped about six containers and may not have any more than three to five more containers shipped this week. If this continues or if there is a labor lock out, my buyers would be forced to buy from another country because they would need stable supply,” according to the statement.
Friedmann said this particular farmer was shipping fresh potatoes and “if they don’t go out now, the potatoes are ruined, cannot be sold. And when he fails to deliver per the contract, he will not get this customer back — ever.”
Another exporter that uses Seattle and Tacoma was investigating alternative routings through Canada. But one steamship executive said different routings might not offer much protection; he remembered that in 2002, when there was a lockout of ILWU members at U.S. terminals, cargo that originated in the U.S. was turned away in Vancouver even though ILWU workers in that port are covered by a different contract than the ILWU members in the U.S.
Friedmann offered testimonials from two other exporters, not identified by name, that talked about the problems they are facing. One, another potato farmer from Washington State, said, “This is turning into a disaster. We have recently secured new export business in the millions of pounds in Australia and Korea. Additional business gains in Philippines and China are all now at risk.”
“Shipping in excess of 17,000 FCLs off the West Coast annually,” the farmer continued, “we are not only risking trade with our foreign partners, but forcing the shutdown of production facilities in the PNW, as we have nowhere to gowith our finished goods.”
A Washington State fruit farmer said, “We have been holding $66,668 of product that is supposed to ship in two containers on a carrier and $82,188.50 of product for three containers on another carrier all week. These products all need to make the voyage to South American markets in time for their holidays. If they do not ship, we will lose the sales entirely, as my customers cannot sell what they do not have, and no one gets a second swing at fresh produce, unlike durable goods.”
Hassan Bouche, national ocean development manager for the NVOCC NNR Global Logistics, said that his company has diverted some imports away from the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach because of the congestion there. But with congestion spreading up the coast, on Wednesday he was trying to get more information about the situation in Tacoma and Seattle.
“The best we can do is keep our customers informed as we don’t own vessels, terminals or containers,” he said. “We may want to give our customers other options like Canada. We want to be as proactive as we can and make our customers aware.”
Juergen Pump, senior vice president at Hamburg Sud North America, said Wednesday evening that his company has had one ship, the Cap Blanche, in Tacoma since Nov. 1, where normally the 2,800-TEU ship would be in and out of the port within 24-36 hours. Hamburg Sud had one ship that called Long Beach for seven days.
He said, at times, there has been no labor working the ship and at other times, gangs working with low productivity. Pump said receiving cargo for export has also been a challenge.
“Export receiving windows are very tight,” he said, with terminals restricting the period of time in which they will receive containers for export in order to avoid gridlock in container yards that are already clogged with import boxes.
Asked if things were getting better or worse, Pump said, “Sideways — there is no improvement.”
The Cap Blanche now has a rotation of Vancouver, Tacoma, Oakland and Long Beach, and Pump noted that Hamburg Sud had recently changed the rotation from Oakland, Vancouver, Tacoma, Long Beach in order to get away from calling Long Beach on the weekend when traffic is heaviest, and have a midweek call instead.
“We did not anticipate we would now get stuck in the PNW,” Pump noted.
Hamburg Sud also had a ship in its West Coast Mediterranean service that called Portland that arrived on time and departed with two days late.
As of 7 a.m., the Marine Exchange of Southern California reported that there were 14 ships at anchor outside the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach including nine containerships.
No end for West Coast port congestion
