West Coast shippers lock-out

OK Don, thank you for the new forum.

Yesterday after work, the wife and I took a run down to the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. As we passed the rail yards near our shop, we saw they were chock full of containers. On our 20 mile drive to the harbor on the 710 freeway it was posted speed all the way. Abnormal for 5PM midweek. The lack of container trucks was the reason.
When we got to the harbor, the sight of 30-35 ships waiting to load or unload was amazing. I wondered how many of those containers are full of import machine tools. There are lines of doublestack trains waiting, both loaded and empty. Very little is coming out of the harbor except for lumber that is in yards and not handled by the longshoremen.
I must say that I am with the longshoremen on this. The shippers are wrong to close the ports like this. The impact on this nation is great. Estimates are 1 billion dollars a day. This is not exactly helping our lousy economy at this point in time. As the ports become more and more automated, the shippers want to start using casual labor to do some of the work, at a much lower cost. Would the cost savings be passed on to us? Yeah right! The longshoremen do a damn good job. I have dealt with them a whole lot. They may be highly paid and take longer than they should on break and lunch, but they get the job done as safely as possible. Being a longshoreman is the 2nd most dangerous job after mining.Have you ever watched them unload break bulk or loose cargo? Just watch the lashers sometime as they work the container ships cutting the containers loose for the crane to grab them. It's tough work and one wrong move and you're dead.

I guess my point is that the shippers have picked a poor time for this action. I'm sure steel prices will be rising shortly as none is coming off the docks. We don't use import steel, but domestic prices will rise also. Businesses are already talking layoffs due to a lack of parts and supplies. Well, if they had the stuff made here, they wouldn't have this problem!
Now that I think about it, I'm actually hoping some of our customers have tons of washers and other parts stuck at the port. We can take care of any shortages. They won't be as cheap as the imports though. The effects of this lockout will be felt for a long time to come as now all the ship schedules are pushed back. They can't make-up the time lost just sitting.

One other thing that pissed me off was seeing the workers locked out of the container facility that sits on the site of the former Long Beach Naval Shipyard and Naval Station. American workers locked out from the land Clinton wanted to sell to the Chinese.

At least the lobster, swordfish, scallops and shrimp dinner was good at Port's Of Call.

Les

Les,
Maybe I have been living in a news blackout or something, but this is the first that I have heard of this. What exactly is happening? When did it start? Can you fill us in on the overall picture and relevant details?
Thanks in advance for any info....
Best regards,
Bawko

September 30, 2002
West Coast Dock Lockout Felt All the Way to Wall Street
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE


AN FRANCISCO, Sept. 30 — West Coast port operators locked out 10,500 longshoremen today in response to what they said was a job slowdown, shutting 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle and sending waves of fear through the economy and Wall Street.

After five months of negotiations failed to produce a contract, the employers' association, the Pacific Maritime Association, announced an indefinitely long shutdown on Sunday night because they said the longshoremen were already paralyzing port operations through various tactics.

Factory managers feared that the shutdown would soon cause a shortage of parts, auto dealers said they might not be able to meet demand for some popular Japanese cars, and many retailers said the shutdown would make it hard to stock their shelves for the Christmas season.

"Obviously, this is a major economic disaster for U.S. importers and exporters that represent a substantial portion of the nation's economy," said Robin Lanier, president of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition, a group that includes Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Toyota and dozens of other major importers. "This shutdown is having an immediate impact. We are at the brink of an assembly line shutdown in various places."

With the port troubles weighing on the economic outlook, the Dow Jones industrial average was down by more than 100 points this afternoon.

The Bush administration said it was monitoring the shutdown, which some economists said would cost the nation's shaky economy $1 billion a day for the first few days, with the cost rising exponentially if the stoppages last several weeks.

"If it goes on for even a short period of time, it's a problem for the economy," said Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman. "We're monitoring it carefully."

The longshoremen's union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, denied that they were engaged in a slowdown. Union officials denounced the management group for closing the ports, insisting that it was management that was putting the nation's economy at risk.

James Spinoza, the union's president, was scheduled to have a news conference in San Francisco this afternoon. On Sunday Mr. Spinoza said, ""This union is ready to go to work."

But Joseph Miniace, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, said longshoremen reduced operations at several ports by more than 50 percent by refusing to work overtime, by not sending their most experienced workers to operate huge cranes and by seizing on safety issues to slow their normal pace of work. In Los Angeles and Oakland, the association said, workers are loading and unloading only about 15 large metal cargo containers per hour, down from their usual rate of nearly 30 per hour.

The port dispute is focused on management's efforts to introduce new technologies to speed cargo handling. Even though the employers have promised job security to the longshoremen, the union has balked at accepting new technology because it worries that some jobs that are now part of the union's jurisdiction will become nonunion or management jobs.

In the last two rounds of negotiations, in 1996 and in 1999, management largely bowed to the union's demands after the union slowed down operations. Mr. Miniace said that the port operators and shipping lines had decided not to be pushed around this time around by the union, which has long been known as one of the nation's most militant.

Calling the employers' move "a defensive shutdown," he said, "I will not pay workers to strike."

The management group insists that the workers have been engaged in a slow-motion strike. Mr. Miniace said slowdowns are more disruptive than a full-scale strike because they throw off scheduling for arriving ships, for trucks that pick up and deliver cargo and for factories that rely on just-in-time arrival of components for production.

By KIM BACA
.c The Associated Press

A weeklong shutdown of the West Coast's major ports has left stacks of market-bound farm produce to rot on the docks and in the holds of ships that can't reach shore.

As contract talks continued between the dockworkers union and shipping lines Saturday, about 1.3 billion apples were awaiting shipment to Asia, nearly 8,000 tons of frozen meat from Australia sat in untouched shipping containers, and hundreds of tons of other fruit and food products remained far from intended markets.

About 5 million pounds of yellow, red, pearl and other onions grown in the Northwest are in danger of becoming moldy, said Del Allen, president of Allports Forwarding, a cargo booking business for farm products.

Each day it continues, the shutdown is costing the U.S. economy an estimated $2 billion, and for many farmers, it comes at the worst possible time - the peak of the fall harvest.

``By not having product being shipped to customers, you're also not receiving money,'' said John Rotteveel, who grows and packs almonds in Dixon, Calif., and exports about 90 percent of his crop.

On Saturday, as representatives of dockworkers and management began their third consecutive day of meetings with a federal mediator in San Francisco, the White House warned both sides to resolve their differences.

``The president's message to labor and management is simple: You are hurting the economy,'' press secretary Ari Fleischer said while traveling with President Bush in New Hampshire.

Two senior administration officials said Bush was considering appointing a board of inquiry into the lockout, a potential first step toward ordering workers back to their jobs for 80 days under the Taft-Hartley Act. Shippers have urged Bush to use the act, but several unions have spoken out against it.

The contract dispute between shipping lines and dockworkers - largely over benefits, the arbitration process and whether jobs created by new technology will be unionized - has sent ripples through nation's agriculture industry, causing slowdowns of the harvest, and in some cases, layoffs.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway stopped grain shipments to the West Coast on Tuesday to avoid further congestion at the ports, said Patrick Hiatte, the railway's spokesman.

At sea, much of the chilled beef, lamb and mutton held up on ships could spoil before it reaches consumers, said Dennis Carl, chairman of the Australian Meat Council's shipping committee.

Though most products can be safely refrigerated, storage problems and costs are mounting.

The D.J. Forry Co. spent $7,200 to bring 1,360 crates plums from the Port of Long Beach to its warehouse in Reedley, Calif., and will spend $5,000 more to truck them to East Coast docks before a much longer voyage to Asia.

Sales manager Cary Crum said D.J. Forry also is bringing grapes back from the port and plans to truck them to New Jersey for shipment to the United Kingdom. The company will have to absorb the extra shipping costs, rather than sell the plums and grapes domestically, because they're already packaged for overseas markets.

Other producers are redirecting food to American supermarkets, which could mean lower prices, said Colin Carter, a professor of agricultural resource economics who studies international trade at the University of California, Davis.

Wholesale prices are already dropping for beef, said Chuck Lambert, chief economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

``Several of the cattle processors are reducing their purchases of cattle and stopped processing product for the Asian market,'' he said. ``We're seeing cattle prices about $25 less per animal that could be attributed to this work stoppage.''

Between 20 and 30 percent of all U.S. agriculture products are exported, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Top exports include cotton, soybeans, beef and fruits and vegetables to Mexico, Europe and the Pacific Rim countries of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. The rim accounts for a third of all U.S. farm exports, the American Farm Bureau said.

``If the ports are not opened immediately, we will face shortages of fresh produce, some dry goods and nonfood products that only may be obtained from overseas,'' said John Motley of the Food Marketing Institute.

The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping companies and terminal operators, locked out 10,500 members of the longshoremen's union last weekend, claiming the dockworkers had engaged in a slowdown to gain leverage in the contract talks.

The association granted an exemption for cargo going to Hawaii, following a similar one given for Alaska-bound goods, and the union said its members would move the cargo.

U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said the department ``continues to be very concerned about the situation and we're monitoring it daily.''

``Many farmers have had a very dry season and they are not able to shop their goods, and they're probably the first ones that are hit by the West Coast ports situation,'' she said.

But the biggest concern for farm groups is that a prolonged dispute could mean a big loss in market share among overseas customers, said Bill Pauli, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation.

``The threat is real that foreign buyers could take their business elsewhere,'' he said. ``A prolonged shutdown could lead to lost overseas markets and downward pressure on farm prices.''

10/06/02 07:49 EDT

We went down to the Port of L.A. again for dinner after work and the lockout is over and the longshoremen went back to work at 6PM tonight. The number of ships anchored offshore has been reported to be between 60-80. It looks like an invasion force at the ready out there.
By 8PM trucks were leaving the port with containers. Anybody waiting for import iron, it should be on it's way eventually.
The freeways should be jammed with trucks as usual in the morning. The lighter traffic has been kind of nice the last week.
And I can say that the seafood combo platter at the Crusty Crab at Ports o' Call is tasty.
Les

Les,

Keep us updated. Am interested to know if they will make any progress soon on the backlog. Seems to me if the ships keep arriving at the same rate as before and the unloading continues at the same rate as before , how in the hell will they ever get rid of the backlog of ships that did not get unloaded during the lockout? Overtime? I don't think the Longshoremen are very interested since nothing in this dispute was settled. Just to keep the unloading on schedule before there was a considerable amount of overtime being worked. This is going to haunt businesses that rely on imports for a long time.

Might also be interesting to know how many of those 60 to 80 ships out there waiting to unload take any of OUR stuff on the way out of town eh ?

D. Thomas said:

September 30, 2002
West Coast Dock Lockout Felt All the Way to Wall Street
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE


AN FRANCISCO, Sept. 30 — West Coast port operators locked out 10,500 longshoremen today in response to what they said was a job slowdown, shutting 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle and sending waves of fear through the economy and Wall Street.

After five months of negotiations failed to produce a contract, the employers' association, the Pacific Maritime Association, announced an indefinitely long shutdown on Sunday night because they said the longshoremen were already paralyzing port operations through various tactics.

Factory managers feared that the shutdown would soon cause a shortage of parts, auto dealers said they might not be able to meet demand for some popular Japanese cars, and many retailers said the shutdown would make it hard to stock their shelves for the Christmas season.

"Obviously, this is a major economic disaster for U.S. importers and exporters that represent a substantial portion of the nation's economy," said Robin Lanier, president of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition, a group that includes Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Toyota and dozens of other major importers. "This shutdown is having an immediate impact. We are at the brink of an assembly line shutdown in various places."

With the port troubles weighing on the economic outlook, the Dow Jones industrial average was down by more than 100 points this afternoon.

The Bush administration said it was monitoring the shutdown, which some economists said would cost the nation's shaky economy $1 billion a day for the first few days, with the cost rising exponentially if the stoppages last several weeks.

"If it goes on for even a short period of time, it's a problem for the economy," said Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman. "We're monitoring it carefully."

The longshoremen's union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, denied that they were engaged in a slowdown. Union officials denounced the management group for closing the ports, insisting that it was management that was putting the nation's economy at risk.

James Spinoza, the union's president, was scheduled to have a news conference in San Francisco this afternoon. On Sunday Mr. Spinoza said, ""This union is ready to go to work."

But Joseph Miniace, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, said longshoremen reduced operations at several ports by more than 50 percent by refusing to work overtime, by not sending their most experienced workers to operate huge cranes and by seizing on safety issues to slow their normal pace of work. In Los Angeles and Oakland, the association said, workers are loading and unloading only about 15 large metal cargo containers per hour, down from their usual rate of nearly 30 per hour.

The port dispute is focused on management's efforts to introduce new technologies to speed cargo handling. Even though the employers have promised job security to the longshoremen, the union has balked at accepting new technology because it worries that some jobs that are now part of the union's jurisdiction will become nonunion or management jobs.

In the last two rounds of negotiations, in 1996 and in 1999, management largely bowed to the union's demands after the union slowed down operations. Mr. Miniace said that the port operators and shipping lines had decided not to be pushed around this time around by the union, which has long been known as one of the nation's most militant.

Calling the employers' move "a defensive shutdown," he said, "I will not pay workers to strike."

The management group insists that the workers have been engaged in a slow-motion strike. Mr. Miniace said slowdowns are more disruptive than a full-scale strike because they throw off scheduling for arriving ships, for trucks that pick up and deliver cargo and for factories that rely on just-in-time arrival of components for production.

Click to expand...

Some things never change....

standardparts said:

Some things never change....

Click to expand...

Have a feeling you may be right this time. The explanations we have been given do not make sense.

There's something else going on, which no one has investigated.

The difference now is the giant cranes, container forwarders,and forks are all computer controlled ,and can run themselves .....but dont ,because because of peace deals with the dockers.....who operate the whole container port from an offsite office ...and do nothing but watch whats going on screens......there was a standoff some years ago here between a couple of billionaires ,top yankee terminators,and the unions ......thousands of cops ,the military supplied by the conservative govt,busloads of professional strike breakers /martial arts experts........and the unions won ,after ports locked up for months,crippled the port owners financially.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

Have a feeling you may be right this time. The explanations we have been given do not make sense.

There's something else going on, which no one has investigated.

Click to expand...

Since we might be repeating past history...what else really bad happened in the Bush years? Whatever caused that pesky 2008 recession anyway.

standardparts said:

Whatever caused that pesky 2008 recession anyway.

Click to expand...

Milton Friedman and Goldman-Sachs. But I don't think they are behind this.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

Milton Friedman and Goldman-Sachs. But I don't think they are behind this.

Click to expand...

2008 recession--banking and investment. Low interest rates, easy mortgages, collapse of housing values, lack of oversight from the Gov't. Looking at all the chaos in D.C. with many of the same crew on both sides, or deciples of those making policy back in the 2000s in charge I'm thinking we are in for a wild ride.

standardparts said:

2008 recession--banking and investment. Low interest rates, easy mortgages, collapse of housing values, lack of oversight from the Gov't. Looking at all the chaos in D.C. with many of the same crew on both sides, or deciples of those making policy back in the 2000s in charge I'm thinking we are in for a wild ride.

Click to expand...

They are incompetent ... I don't disagree with you that Joe Biden and his followers are worthless dipshits. Where we disagree is in the belief that the Donald is any better. If anything, he is even worse. Biden will only be around a while but the changes Trumplestiltskin was making would last forever.

If you guys don't grow a brain and find someone better to vote for, this is gonna get ugly. All this squealing about masks and vaccines is retarded. Take the shots, wear the masks, move on. There's real problems but no one is addressing them.

If you can't even get trucks to unload ships, or replace some water pipes in front yards, what are you going to do about real problems ?

EmanuelGoldstein said:

They are incompetent ... I don't disagree with you that Joe Biden and his followers are worthless dipshits. Where we disagree is in the belief that the Donald is any better. If anything, he is even worse. Biden will only be around a while but the changes Trumplestiltskin was making would last forever.

Click to expand...

"Forever?"

That's just plain silly.

One case, he only gets one more four-year term.
Other case, someone else does. Probably NOT a Democrat.

BFD.

Buyed-In only has about a year left to f**k things up. Then a new Congress will gridlock his ass. And the Courts. Basically already HAVE done.

It's a Federal Republic, dummy. The States - United or "not so much" - actually DO retain the majority of power that affects the citizens the most directly and widely.

Meanwhile... imported goods from Asia aren't getting landed and out for distribution?
Can't buy goods we don't have.
Don't have to spend money on them we don't have, either.

That's a feature, not a bug!

Bloody MARVELOUS, actually! Waaay more effective than Trump's tariffs at hobbling China.

Not as if they were essential foodstuffs, after all.

Anything else doesn't really matter. We'll do just fine without it on the basics.

"Down East" wisdom applies:

Buy it new
Wear it out
Make it do
Do without.

"Tragedy of the treadmill", indeed.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

They are incompetent ... I don't disagree with you that Joe Biden and his followers are worthless dipshits. Where we disagree is in the belief that the Donald is any better. If anything, he is even worse. Biden will only be around a while but the changes Trumplestiltskin was making would last forever.

If you guys don't grow a brain and find someone better to vote for, this is gonna get ugly. All this squealing about masks and vaccines is retarded. Take the shots, wear the masks, move on. There's real problems but no one is addressing them.

If you can't even get trucks to unload ships, or replace some water pipes in front yards, what are you going to do about real problems ?

Click to expand...

"If you guys"...??? "what are you going to do about"...??? Odd how you seem to be on some other team.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

They are incompetent ... I don't disagree with you that Joe Biden and his followers are worthless dipshits. Where we disagree is in the belief that the Donald is any better. If anything, he is even worse. Biden will only be around a while but the changes Trumplestiltskin was making would last forever.

If you guys don't grow a brain and find someone better to vote for, this is gonna get ugly. All this squealing about masks and vaccines is retarded. Take the shots, wear the masks, move on. There's real problems but no one is addressing them.

If you can't even get trucks to unload ships, or replace some water pipes in front yards, what are you going to do about real problems ?

Click to expand...

Joe Biden is President. So yes, a " worthless dipshit" is running things.

thermite said:

"Forever?"

That's just plain silly.

One case, he only gets one more four-year term.
Other case, someone else does. Probably NOT a Democrat.

BFD.

Buyed-In only has about a year left to f**k things up. Then a new Congress will gridlock his ass. And the Courts. Basically already HAVE done.

It's a Federal Republic, dummy. The States - United or "not so much" - actually DO retain the majority of power that affects the citizens the most directly and widely.

Meanwhile... imported goods from Asia aren't getting landed and out for distribution?
Can't buy goods we don't have.
Don't have to spend money on them we don't have, either.

That's a feature, not a bug!

Bloody MARVELOUS, actually! Waaay more effective than Trump's tariffs at hobbling China.

Not as if they were essential foodstuffs, after all.

Anything else doesn't really matter. We'll do just fine without it on the basics.

"Down East" wisdom applies:

Buy it new
Wear it out
Make it do
Do without.

"Tragedy of the treadmill", indeed.

Click to expand...

One report said 60-80% of containers being returned to shippers are empty. Seems import/export would be greatly imbalanced.

standardparts said:

Joe Biden is President. So yes, a " worthless dipshit" is ^^^ ruining ^^^ things.

Click to expand...

Fixed that for yah.

Buyed-in inherited a "going concern" in damned good shape from an administration that knew what needed done and did it.

Keeping it simple... ANYTHING that pisses off Enamel Goatshine, the Kommietard Klown, is a VERY good thing.


All Cluster-F**k-Joe Buyed-in had to do was ... nothing at all.

But he was put IN the orifice specifically to f**k-up America.

"Never underestimate Joe's ability to f**k things up." was his job reference from B. Hossein Obama.

No accident. No misunderstanding. Exactly what the Demonrats WANTED.

So he actually IS doing the job he was "bought-in" to do.

F**k things up.

Thermite seems to be particularly lucid today, and exhibiting his usual excellent grasp of reality.