Posted on 04/12/2023 6:56:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week, the largest West Coast port — the Port of Los Angeles — along with the Port of Long Beach experienced an unplanned 24-hour closure. The ports closed because dock workers simply didn’t show up, leaving the Thursday night shift and the Friday day shift unmanned.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union issued a statement saying workers not showing up for their shifts was no big deal:
On the evening of Thursday, April 6, 2023, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 13 held its monthly membership meeting as is its contractual right. … Several thousand union members attend the monthly meeting.
On Friday, April 7, 2023, union members who observe religious holidays took the opportunity to celebrate with their families.
The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents the terminals, had a different take on the situation. On Friday, the PMA stated:
The largest ILWU local on the West Coast has taken a concerted action to withhold labor at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, resulting in widespread worker shortages. A majority of the jobs for last night’s shift went unfilled, including all jobs for cargo-handling equipment operators needed to load and unload cargo. The workers who did show up were released because there was not a full complement of ILWU members to operate the terminals.
ILWU Local 13 withheld labor again for this morning’s shift. The action by the Union has effectively shut down the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – the largest gateway for maritime trade in the United States.
Global supply chain news site FreightWaves observes that “Labor action at West Coast ports does not have a history of being explicitly confirmed; rather, it takes the form of passive-aggressive behavior that escalates with increasingly implausible deniability.”
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
The Port of Los Angeles’ sales pitch to importers in recent months has been: We have plenty of capacity now. No more ship queues. The port labor contract expired July 1, 2022, but there has been no major disruption to imports during negotiations on the new contract. No need to ship your goods all the way through the Panama Canal to the East or Gulf coasts. Come back to LA!
That sales pitch, to the extent it ever worked, died on Friday. …
One [exporter of agricultural goods] had 10 trucks turned away from the Port of Long Beach on Thursday night, with containers of goods having to be stored at a yard near the port. This exporter incurred an added cost of $20,000, leading to a substantial loss on the international sale.
There’s one guy on FR that actually DEFENDS UNIONS, by playing down the harm they do (since they are a relatively small portion of the workforce). Of course he denies he’s defending them, but I doubt he is as dumb as he wants us to believe.
ButtEdge’s fault.
I remember back in the 80s GM having a terrible time keeping their Norwood, Oh plant operating because the UAW workers refused to show up in numbers enough to keep the line operating. I think their bosses in the retail mall that replaced the plant aren’t as forgiving.
I think it is inevitable that Ca ports close. Or, are massively scaled down.
With Ca essentially banning 50%+ of the trucks needed to move goods.
It is imperative for shippers to move the destination to a hub that can move as much as they can land ASAP.
Now add in Union/ worker/ Staffing/ reliability issues?
If the freight ships are not scheduling their posts of call into OR and WA, they deserve what they get meaning sitting off-shore for weeks / months waiting to unload. That’s losing money by the minute. Of course after these ships dock they still have to wait on CA-approved trucks to move their containers of which there are not enough.
Once again CA leads the USA in stupidity with an uncanny ability to create a cluster-phuck from any opportunity. Of course this ability is demonstrated in most demorat majority enclaves including WDC.
LA Ports have periodically been a mess for the last 10+ years. They underwent a couple strikes, then covid, then the post-covid boom, and now a bust and another strike.
Add to that 1000 permanent woke Government rules on truckers, emissions, work hours, etc.... and its nearly guaranteed - relying on LA Port will screw up your supply chains
I would expect Mexico to put up a massive port.
Even with whatever level of bribes, graft and theft it would be massively cheaper and faster to get goods into central and west US.
With the LA/LB issues, it seems like a huge long term win.
Hell.. the cartels could fund it and they’d have a huge win all around.
According to their own website the job of the port is to keep the water clean. Not move stuff.
I believe that other ports - especially Houston and Savannah - have benefitted greatly from LA's union/democrat port chaos.
responding to myself...
IF the cartels put up a port on the scale of a LA/LB...
That could do for the cartels what casino gambling did for organized crime here.
The amount of money they could launder through.
legit payroll and benefits of a massive workforce. Put every street thug on the pay roll with Medical and PTO and a 401k!
massive transportation infrastructure, and control of nearly every aspect.
Port of Los Angeles China has idea for another port to buy.
“I would expect Mexico to put up a massive port.”
They already have them. For instance, The Port of Lázaro Cárdenas (Spanish: [ˈlasaɾo ˈkaɾðenas] is the largest Mexican seaport and one of the largest seaports in the Pacific Ocean basin with an annual traffic capacity of around 25 million tons of cargo and 2,200,000 TEU (twenty foot containers). When you tack that on the major ports at Ensenada, Mazatlan, and Manzanillo, those are the four majors on the Pacific side and could produce a large competition with the American ports. There are four more big ports on the Gulf of Mexico side.
wy69
So have various ports in Florida.
The only alternative is Mexico. Oregon and Washington are just as communistic. If I were AMLO I would be spending a huge amount of money upgrading Ensenada.
Yep by 2030 no ic trucks in calif, bad for shipping using an EV semi
#6 I was watching a trucking video and a guy had his CDL suspended when he went to renew. The video/audio was capture on his cell phone when he went to the DMV in South Carolina where he has lived since 2017. Before he lived in AZ and Calif prior. It turned out that California said he owed $10 dollars <-ten back in 2001 for a traffic fine when he was traveling thru Arizona to California by car. He had paid by mail but it looked like the state never received. He called up the AZ DMV and the lady helped him out. She had lived in his current state and knew the area and he knew AZ. She said it was Calif putting the block and not AZ as he first thought.
Keep in mind this ticket he got happened 22 years ago!!
They both mentioned that many warehouses were being built in a AZ town they both knew and he said it was because truckers drop off their loads as their trucks are not allowed into Calif!! and other truckers then take the load into Calif.
This makes everything cost more money!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAbJuGG2x2c
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