Free Republic

The West Coast port slowdowns are hurting workers as well as retailers this holiday season.The NBC affiliate in Seattle reported that many of those who work for the ports can’t afford utilities or Christmas gifts for their families because the slowdowns have delayed their paychecks. The work slowdowns are the result of a seven-month labor dispute between the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Each side of the dispute blames the other.Vicki Raiter, the mother of one of the Port of Tacoma workers, told the local NBC affiliate, “If the shipments aren’t coming, then...

What pray tell has our country come to, and what pray tell has my beloved state of Florida allowed, as a Middle Eastern company…Gulftainer…was recently awarded a 35-year, $100 million concession agreement to ‘supposedly’ boost cargo operations at Port Canaveral…a port NOT far from the Trident Turning Basin which the Navy uses to support our fleet of nuclear ballistic missile submarines…and a port perilously close to the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral where our space launches take place…or at least they did until Obama cut their funding. And while it’s claimed by port officials that the new container and...

California will take another hit right in the struggling economy starting April 2015. Instead of loading and unloading at California ports, many international cargo ships and oil tankers will start accessing the booming Texas economy. Texas is flourishing under Rick Perry’s Republican policies. A dramatic expansion of the Panama Canal will give more choices to massive, new cargo ships. The Panama Canal has been at maximum capacity, with more ships transiting the Isthmus of Panama than the canal was designed to handle. But more importantly, changes in the shipping industry are in play. Massive new megaships are transforming the industry....

The Pacific Northwest is proposing to build three port facilities to export coal and other commodities. These projects will bring tens of millions of jobs to our region and employ thousands of people. Unfortunately, national anti-coal campaigns funded by climate change activists are trying to stop this investment. Governors Kitzhaber and Inslee are propping up President Obama’s war on coal by insisting that the projects clear unprecedented regulatory hurdles. Climate change activists will be busing people in from all over the Pacific Northwest for a hearing on the Longview export facility, scheduled for Wednesday October 9th at 5pm at the...

Longshore Union Quits the AFL-CIO In a surprise move, the 40,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union announced its disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO yesterday. The news comes just a week before the federation is set to hold its national convention in Los Angeles, the nation’s biggest port and an ILWU stronghold.. The ILWU, known for its militant traditions and progressive politics, has been drawn into turf wars with other unions in recent years—particularly in the grain export terminals of the Pacific Northwest, where longshore workers have been locked in a high-stakes battle over master contract standards since 2011. - See more...

Oh, just a bit of fun this evening. President Obama was talking military issues at Camp Pendleton today when he referenced his wife’s and Dr. Jill Biden’s work on behalf of military families, only he couldn’t remember one of their names. Better Jill than Michelle, I suppose: And, on Jay Leno’s show last night, the president showed a great interest in deepening the nation’s ports, but not a lot of geographical aptitude. If we don’t deepen our ports all along the Gulf — places like Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia, or Jacksonville, Florida — if we don’t do that,...

Last Updated: Fri Oct 05, 2012 07:26 am (KSA) 04:26 am (GMT) Film ‘Stolen’ exposes modern-day slavery in Polisario camps Friday, 05 October 2012 The film, Stolen, the story of a Sahrawi girl called Fatim Sellami, herself a slave, who was reunited with her mother after 35 years of separation with the help of the United Nations. (Image grab from film Stolen By KHADIJA FATHI AGADIR / MOROCCO A controversial documentary film that exposes slavery in the Western Sahara camps controlled by the Polisario front has been screened in Morocco’s coastal resort city of Agadir. The film, directed by Violeta...

It's not about jobs. It's not about safety. It's not about improving dockworkers' living standards. The looming, long-planned East and Gulf Coast port strikes are about protecting Big Labor's archaic work practices and corrupt waterfront rackets. Are you ready for a fiscal cliff? The union bosses of an estimated 14,500 workers at 15 ports are preparing to send the economy plunging back into recession over productivity and efficiency rules changes. You read that right. Much more on that in a moment. But first, here's what's at stake. The International Longshoremen's Association's (ILA) grip extends from Boston to Texas to Florida...

In the days and weeks after Hurricane Sandy wrecked ports, resorts, and power lines across the mid-Atlantic coast, the Obama administration launched multiple projects targeting the revitalization of such infrastructure. Not in seaside New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, but in cities across India: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Mumbai… Patriot Update has discovered that taxpayers will foot the bill for industry trips to India — trips taken on behalf of a consortium whose members include multinationals such as ExxonMobil, GE, and IBM.

Approximately 16 of the $100,000+ Fisker Karma extended-range luxury hybrids were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey last night when water from Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge apparently breached the port and submerged the vehicles. As Jalopnik has exclusively learned, the cars then caught fire and burned to the ground. Our source tells us they were “first submerged in a storm surge and then caught fire, exploded.” This wouldn’t be the first time the vehicles, which use a small gasoline engine to charge batteries that provide energy to two electric motors, had an issue with sudden combustion. The vehicle, despite only...

AFP - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was expected in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian leaders on his first major foreign visit since the killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host Zardari for talks on Thursday at the Kremlin where officials from the two countries were also expected to sign agreements on cooperation in agriculture, aviation and energy, a spokesman for the Pakistan Embassy in Moscow told AFP. "Economics will be the focus of the visit," said the spokesman, Raja Abdul Qayyum. The three-day visit to Russia will be Zardari's first...

The Obama administration has failed to meet a legal deadline for scanning all shipping containers for radioactive material before they reach the United States, a requirement aimed at strengthening maritime security and preventing terrorists from smuggling a nuclear device into any of the nation’s 300 sea and river ports. The Department of Homeland Security was given until this month to ensure that 100 percent of inbound shipping containers are screened at foreign ports. But the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano, informed Congress in May that she was extending a two-year blanket exemption to foreign ports because the screening is proving too...

Occupy protesters try to disrupt ports; police make arrestsBy Mike Pearson, CNN updated 5:27 AM EST, Tue December 13, 2011 (CNN) -- Occupy protesters succeeded in shutting down overnight operations at California's port of Oakland on Monday night after a day of similar protests in several other U.S. cities. The protests in Oakland have "disrupted workers trying to get to work and impaired the port's ability to operate," port spokesman Issac Kos-Read told CNN. Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said the port has told its members not to report for work for the overnight...

Plunging rates for chartering container vessels that carry sneakers, furniture and flat-screen TVs may signal a U.S. consumer slowdown and losses for shipping lines in what is traditionally their busiest time of the year. Fees for hiring vessels have fallen 9.3 percent since the end of April, according to the Howe Robinson Container Index, which tracks charter rates for a range of vessels. Last year, the index surged 56 percent in the period, as lines added ships on demand from U.S. and European retailers restocking for the back-to-school and holiday shopping periods. “The troubling part is that charter rates are...

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed a five-year labor agreement on Tuesday that will cover more than $1.5 billion in planned Port of Los Angeles construction projects. Approved by the port governing board in March and the City Council in May, the agreement sets guidelines on the types of workers that must be hired by contractors for all capital projects at the port. The terms cover about 95 percent of the port's projected capital projects outlays for the next five years. "This project labor agreement gives thousands of our local workers in some of the most economically disadvantaged communities the...

GALVESTON — The Port of Galveston is in final negotiations to lease its facilities to a major investment group, which could make it the first U.S. port to turn over its entire operation to the private sector. Several U.S. ports lease terminal operations to private operators, but "in this case it is the entire port structure, which is really a unique opportunity," said economist John Martin, who heads Martin Associates, based in Lancaster, Pa. Martin Associates had done work for every U.S. port and did the economic study for the proposed lease, a 50/50 joint venture of global investment firm...

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent in San Diego confirmed that weapons of mass effect (a.k.a., “WMDs”) had been found by U.S. officials, but not at the particular port where he was being interviewed by a reporter from ABC affiliate 10News.com. The video below aired during the local newscast Feb. 9 and featured this “money quote” from Al Hallor, the assistant port director and CBP officer, during the interview: “At the airport, seaport, at our port of entry we have not this past fiscal year, but our partner agencies have found those things.”

The new year 2011 and lack of confidence in the tax policies of incoming governor Jerry Brown brings devastating news to Southern California. The progressive tax-and-spend policies of Democrat-run California government have chased another lucrative business out of the state. The open-borders, do-nothing immigration policy of the Obama administration claims the runner-up prize for this economic blow to an already-reeling economy in San Diego. The major cruise lines have just announced they are leaving San Diego, California to make NEW home ports in Texas, Florida and Australia. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Texas and Florida don’t have state...

Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday he will ask Boston’s lawyers to see whether the city can block Yemeni tankers from delivering liquefied natural gas into Boston Harbor, calling such deliveries “wrong.’’ “We’re in extraordinary times that call for extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of our city,’’ the mayor said in an interview. “They cannot be coming into a harbor like Boston, where there is less than 50 feet between the tankers and residential areas.’ -snip- The Globe reported yesterday that shipments of liquefied natural gas from Yemen are scheduled to arrive for the first time in Boston as...

Filiberto Cervantes has already separated from his wife and kids, lost his car, moved into his truck and says he subsists largely on a diet of $1 cheese burritos. But Jan. 1 looms like a date with the grim reaper himself. ... Cervantes is among thousands of truckers servicing the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex who are facing a day of reckoning this New Year's. That's because Jan. 1 is the day new clean-air guidelines go into effect at the ports, banning all pre-1994 trucks -- as well as 1994-2003 rigs that have not been retrofitted with costly diesel particulate...