Effects of West Coast ports shutdown minimal
West Coast longshoremen returned to work Thursday evening after shutting down ports from San Diego to Seattle for what longshore union leaders called a May Day protest against U.S. military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Despite the 10-hour shuttering of 29 West Coast ports by the 25,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union, industry watchers said the shutdown would not cause any long-term supply chain disruptions.
'This is something that happens every year,' National Retail Federation spokesman J. Craig Shearman told the Associated Press. Shearman said that last year many ILWU members took May Day off to participate in rallies supporting immigration reform.
Noted Los Angeles economist and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. Jack Kyser agreed.
'The impact is very modest because, No. 1, a lot of shippers were anticipating this and had planned in advance, and No. 2, import activity at the ports was already running well below levels seen in previous years because of the (economy),' Kyser told the Long Beach Press-Telegram. 'It’s an annoyance and some people are going to lose some money, but it’s not a devastating situation.'
ILWU leadership warned terminal operators and employers in February that members would be taking the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. day shift off on May Day. Despite two labor arbitration determinations against the stoppage and supporting the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents ILWU employers, the union continued to tell members to stay home.
However, the advance notice from the ILWU allowed shippers and carriers to plan for the loss of the single work-shift.
Industry analyst Paul Bingham, with Global Insight, said the timing of the event and the advance notice to shippers and carriers minimized the impact.
'If this had come as a surprise it would have been a lot more serious in its impact,' Bingham told Reuters.
Bingham also said that because the industry has yet to move into its peak shipping season, the cargo affected was much less than it might have been later in the year.
'This isn’t like the West Coast port lockout in 2002 when we shut down the ports for 10 days,' Bingham said. Estimates suggest that the 2002 shutdown cost the national economy more than $1 billion a day.
The PMA said that Thursday's work levels were likely similar to the previous Thursday, when roughly 6,000 ILWU members handled about 10,000 containers on the West Coast.
ILWU officials estimated that about 10,000 of the union's 25,000 members that stayed home took part in various anti-war protests Thursday.
The PMA, which is negotiating a coast-wide contract with the ILWU, blasted the union for continuing with what it called an illegal strike.
'Shutting down the ports in defiance of the contract and the arbitrator’s order in no way benefits an already-fragile U.S. economy,' PMA spokesman Steve Getzug told the Press-Telegram. 'We have a lot of serious issues to resolve at the bargaining table, and the nation cannot afford uncertainty about the reliability of the West Coast ports.'
Under the arbitration decisions, the PMA could punish scheduled workers that did not show up on Thursday, though the association has not said if it would do so. ' Keith Higginbotham
