Port pace slows, but goods still moving
LOS ANGELES — Labor strife on the West Coast waterfront isn’t going to steal Christmas.
Dockworkers at 29 seaports from San Diego to Seattle have worked without a contract since July, and negotiations over a new one turned contentious this fall.
On Tuesday, full negotiating teams met for the first time in nearly two weeks.
Public pressure has been mounting, especially because the movement of cargo — several billion dollars’ worth on an average day, mostly to and from Asia — has been slowed.
Those issues ripple through the economy, including truckers who don’t get paid as much because they are hauling fewer loads and importers who are being charged fees to store containers in dockside yards.
An association representing transoceanic shipping lines and operators of port terminals accuses dockworkers of orchestrating work slowdowns at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and farther north at Oakland and Washington state.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union says they have been working safely and that the bigger factor is a shortage of truck beds to carry containers from the docks in Los Angeles and Long Beach — by far the nation’s largest — into commerce.
At the Southern California port complex, for example, the time between when a ship docked and when a container was available for pickup more than doubled to about 80 hours between September 2013 and September
2014, according to data from INTTRA, which tracks global trade for shipping lines.
While both work pace and equipment shortages are a factor, retailers say most Christmas goods are safely through the ports. Most likely affected would be the restocking of “musthave” toys or other surprise sellers.
In those cases, importers might opt for air delivery, which is about 10 times more expensive than delivery by ship, according to Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain at the National Retail Federation.
Stores are “pretty much eating the cost at this point,” Gold said.
Slowdowns by West Coast longshoremen don’t necessarily foreshadow a strike by the union or a lockout by management, according to a former shipping executive who shut down the docks for 10 days in 2002.
Since then, market share for the 29 West Coast ports has eroded, automation has increased, and concessions by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union weakened its hold on operations, said Joseph Miniace, former president of the Pacific Maritime Association, representing shippers, stevedores and terminal operators.
“A strike or a lockout would be very harmful to both sides,” said Miniace, 69, who locked out dockworkers a dozen years ago in response to slowdowns. “Everybody should take stock and realize that.”
West Coast ports, which then handled about 50 percent of imports, saw their share decline to 43.5 percent by last year, according to a Maritime Association report. The deterioration is restraining the union and management from deploying their most potent weapons even as the contract talks drag into a sixth month, Miniace said.