Take me to the ports

Welcome back to Check Call. Conference season is upon us, and wrapping up conference season is the one and only FreightWaves Future of Supply Chain. If you haven’t yet decided on going or you want to go but are looking for the best deal on tickets, then you’re in luck. Check Call subscribers get a discount. Go here to buy tickets or use CheckCallFSC24 at checkout to get the best deal around. It’s in Atlanta so flights are going to be cheap and plentiful, and all the coolest people are coming so you better too.In this edition: Port roundup and the Teamsters are holding strong.

The nation’s ports are places where very few truck drivers haven’t had to deliver into or pick up from. It’s time to look back and see how the ports performed last year and what the new year brings.

Starting off strong by breaking export records is the Georgia Ports Authority with an all-time high of $49.7 billion for 2023 – a $2.7 billion increase from the record in 2022. The top exports were civilian aircraft ($8.2 billion), motor vehicles ($3.1 billion), turbojets ($2.3 billion), poultry ($1.5 billion) and chemical woodpulp ($1.3 billion). The record-breaking ports were all across the state but most definitely include the heavy hitters of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the Port of Savannah and the Port of Brunswick.

Jumping into the future are the ports in Alabama as well as the Port of Cleveland.

In Alabama, the Port of Mobile is building an intermodal container facility to help with rail connectivity to northern Alabama. Not only that but the port is going to redevelop a portion of an existing CSX facility in Decatur to expedite the new container facility. This is likely not the only major improvement coming to the Alabama ports as the port authority has more than $1 billion in capital projects underway across the state. Well done, Alabama.

Moving north to Cleveland, we find the port most of us could see from our hotels at the Future of Supply Chain last year. It has received $32 million in both federal and state grants that will be used to modernize the port’s warehouse and upgrade electrical infrastructure. Basically the Port of Cleveland is about to get the biggest glow-up and become too cool for the rest of us. Realistically, though, the current warehouse is over 50 years old. Needless to say, warehousing and warehouse technology have changed just a bit in the past 50 years. Welcome to the 21st century, Cleveland. Happy to have you here.

TRAC Tuesday. This week’s TRAC lane is from Charleston, South Carolina, to the Big Apple. The 735-mile journey up the East Coast is coming in at about $2.39 per mile. The rate per mile is down compared to the past 30 days, which makes sense given that the Outbound Tender Reject Index is at or below 5% in each market. When rejections are in this range, spot rates are typically on par with contracted freight. Not much is getting rejected.

That could change as some truck drivers have decided against hauling freight to New York City. It seems unlikely that this demonstration will have a large effect on the spot market and cause rates to increase, but it’s still something to note in case it becomes a problem for the already tricky-to-cover metropolitan area.

Who’s with whom? The Teamsters have hit the headlines again, taking a strong chunk of the limelight last year, most notably with UPS, Yellow and the longshoremen. They’re back and ready to go for 2024.

First in the beverage world. The Teamsters have been kindly asked not to represent a group of beverage drivers in Wisconsin. There have been many successes for the Teamsters lately, so this action by workers at Keurig Dr Pepper in Wisconsin is surprising, especially considering the decision against Teamsters support was across multiple facilities. However, there is a possibility of a much larger strike in the beverage sector – something to note if there are a lot of beverage shippers on your account Rolodex.

Here are some of the wins for the Teamsters crew. Lately the union has brought home a W at US Foods (higher wages, better health benefits, better safety and pension, etc.) and at Ryder. Ryder workers in Perrysburg, Ohio, voted to be represented by the Teamsters Local 20.

The beverage-sector question hanging in the balance is Anheuser-Busch. There has been a strike authorized by workers to start March 1, but negotiations are ongoing to hopefully prevent it.