Posted on 11/11/2014 7:09:48 PM PST by Citizen Zed
Tension over prolonged labor talks between maritime shippers and the union representing 20,000 West Coast dockworkers has erupted in public as the two sides blamed each other for escalating cargo congestion at the two busiest U.S. container ports.
As of Tuesday, 14 freighters were anchored waiting for space to enter the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where container cargo traffic has been backing up for about a month, delaying deliveries of last-minute holiday merchandise, port and retail officials said.
Management has accused the union of orchestrating work slowdowns by its members, first at ports in the Pacific Northwest, and then at Los Angeles and Long Beach, to create leverage at the bargaining table.
Union officials acknowledge that individual dockworkers may be acting out their frustration over the pace of contract talks, but deny organizing protest delays. They point to other factors that port officials cite as the main reasons for gridlock.
Chief among them is a chronic shortage of tractor-trailer chassis used for hauling cargo containers out of the ports, a situation created when shipping lines decided to sell off their chassis to equipment leasing companies.
(Excerpt) Read more at kfgo.com ...
Aren’t unions great!
Being intimately involved in this nonsense, I can tell you it is fully orchestrated by the ILWU International leadership.
And not a single word about the regulations that caused the shipping companies to sell off their trucks - that cause so many of the drivers to just give up with jobs at the ports - that caused the railroads to cut down the number of trains.
Nope, nope. Pay no attention to the economy destroying regulations... That’s too hard for the general public to understand.
Agreed.
14 ships anchored offshore is not that much if you were talking tankers. Unheard of if your talking about container ships. This is a deliberate lack of effort orchestrated by the unions.
No longshoremen necessary for delivering domestically manufactured merchandise.
The sell off came on the heels of the American Trucker Association mimicking the California Trucking Association demand that the owners of the chassis be held responsible for any accident involving the chassis, even though it was demonstrated that the chassis caused the accident in less than .05% of the time. Drugs and Alcohol were the major causation for the short haul truckers. That and the pay of $35.00 per flip, or round trip. The truckers pushing to make more than three flips a day. No maintenance on their trucks, etc, etc, etc.
Oh come on, once they move to zero emission trucks running on a catenary system the problem will be solved.
When will China build a giant port in baca and truck everything north
Baja
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