Year: <span>2022</span>

EFFORTS to reach a settlement in the pay dispute at port of Felixstowe have ground to a halt following a meeting with UK arbitration service Acas. 

Unite, which represents the 1,900 hourly paid workers that are set to strike for eight days from August 21, rejected an offer from Hutchison, the operator of the UK’s largest container port, of a £500 ($605) lump sum, in addition to a 7% pay offer. 

“We are disappointed and regret that despite our best efforts we have still been unable to reach an agreement with the hourly branch of Unite,” a spokesperson for the port said in a statement. 

Another branch of Unite representing salaried workers has agreed to put a similar offer to its members ahead of the threatened strike. 

“The hourly branch of Unite has again rejected the port’s improved position and refused to put it to its members,” the spokesperson said. “We urge them to consult their members on the latest offer as soon as possible.” 

Felixstowe said Unite had also turned down the port’s offer to meet again for further talks, but the Unite said it would still negotiate. 

“Unite’s door remains open for further talks but strike action will go ahead unless the company tables an offer that our members can accept,” said Unite national officer Robert Morton. “Felixstowe docks is massively profitable. In 2020 alone, it raked in £61m in pretax profits and paid dividends of £99m. It can afford to put forward a reasonable pay offer to our members but once again has chosen not to.” 

The port has warned there would be “no winners” from industrial action, which would result in lost earnings for the port and employees. 

“Our focus has been to find a solution that works for our employees and protects the future success of the port,” the spokesperson said. 

Any action at the port, which has not seen a strike since 1989, would have a ripple effect across UK supply chains, according to freight forwarder Zencargo. 

“We predict shortages in equipment, further congestion, increased dwell times at the port and changes to scheduling,” it said. 

Port calls at Felixstowe would be reduced or skipped altogether. While some calls may be able to divert to other UK gateways such as London Gateway and Southampton, these facilities would not be able to handle the entirety of Felixstowe cargo. 

That would mean cargoes likely ending up at European ports as carriers continued their voyages. 

But with congestion running high in Europe, this would only add to disruption there as containers were offloaded to then be feed back to the UK. 

“Congestion increased last week at Dutch and German ports, and could worsen further if Felixstowe-bound cargo is diverted to north continent ports to avoid the potential strike,” analysts at Linerlytica noted. “German port workers could also resume strikes after the August 26 deadline for negotiations to be concluded with their employers.”

News from Lloyd’s List by James Baker

Threats of port disruptions saw volumes brought forward to the first half of the year. Even with an expected easing in the second half, import volumes will still exceed 2021

US CONTAINERISED imports are likely to see a net gain compared with last year, despite an expected slowdown in volumes in the second half of this year as the economy cools.

“Retail sales are still growing, but the economy is slowing down and that is reflected in cargo imports,” said National Retail Federation vice-president Jonathan Gold.

Data from the NRF and Hackett Associates showed that US ports handled 2.3m teu in June, the latest month for which figures are available. 

That was a 5.9% decline on the record 2.4m teu volumes imported in May but remains 4.9% above the corresponding month last year.

June’s results brought the first half of the year to 13.5m teu, a 5.5% increase year on year.

“The heady days of growth in imports are quickly receding,” said Hackett Associates founder Ben Hackett. “The outlook is for a decline in volumes compared with 2021 during the next few months, and the decline is expected to deepen in 2023.”

While numbers for July are not finalised, they are expected to see 3.2% increase over 2021, before the tide turns in August with a 3% year-on-year decline. The remaining months of the year are forecast to be between static or down on last year. 

Final numbers for the second half of the year are forecast at 12.8m teu, down 1.5% on the second half of 2021, while the full year will still come out 2% higher at 26.3m teu.

The NRF said that volumes had been front-loaded this year as shippers sought to avoid potential disruptions caused by the expiration of the US west coast labour contract on July 1, with early shipments driving second-quarter volumes. 

“Lower volumes may help ease congestion at some ports, but others are still seeing backups and global supply chain challenges are far from over,” said Mr Gold. “Our biggest concern is the potential for disruption because of separate labour negotiations at the west coast ports and the freight railroads. Concluding both sets of negotiations without disruption is critical as the important holiday season approaches.” 

News from Lloyd’s List by James Baker

 

The Port of Long Beach reported its most active June, boosted by increased consumer demand as retailers stock shelves for back-to-school shopping. The month capped the port’s strongest quarter on record in Q2, marking two consecutive quarters of record setting cargo volumes despite headwinds from inflation and fears of a looming recession.

Long Beach joins its neighbor at the San Pedro Bay Port Complex, the Port of Angeles, in setting new monthly records in June.

Dockworkers and terminal operators at the Port of Long Beach moved 835,412 TEU in June, up 15.3% from the same month last year and surpassing the previous record set in June 2018 by 83,224 TEUs. Imports rose 16.4% to 415,677 TEUs, while exports saw a 1.4% decrease to 115,303 TEUs. Empty containers moved through the port jumped 21.6% to 304,433 TEUs.

More busy months are anticipated ahead.

“We are anticipating a robust summer season as consumer demand continues to drive cargo to our docks,” said Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero. “We expect to remain moderately busy in the coming months, and we will work to promptly process containers lingering at the Port.”

“Our waterfront workforce continues to move cargo at a record-setting pace,” said Long Beach Harbor Commission President Steven Neal. “Our strong partnerships with labor and industry continue to make us a leader in trans-Pacific trade.”

The monthly figures come after the amount of aging cargo at the Port of Long Beach surpassed late October levels when the San Pedro Bay ports first announced the Container Dwell Fee for aging cargo. Both Los Angeles and Long Beach have continued to postpone charging the fee.

As of today, more than 25,000 containers have been sitting on Port of Long Beach docks for nine days or more, with another 27,000 at the Port of Los Angeles.

The Port of Long Beach said June’s cargo influx arrived as pandemic-induced shutdowns were lifted in China, retailers stocked up on back-to-school supplies and continued “robust” consumer demand despite inflation and the potential threat of an economic recession next year. Consumer spending is anticipated to remain strong through the end of this year due to the healthy job market, but rising costs for food, gasoline, utilities and other goods are delivering a blow to consumer confidence, the port said.

Looking at the first half of the year, Long Beach has moved 5,007,778 TEUs, up 5.3% from 2021’s record setting pace. The second quarter also marked the port’s best quarter overall with 2,547,119 TEUs moved from April 1 to June 30, breaking the previous record set during the first quarter of 2022 by 86,460 TEUs.

With West Coast rail congestion building and dock and rail worker labor negotiations already overtime, the weeks and months ahead will continue to be something to watch.

Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka says clearing cargo—rail cargo, in particular— is critical to avoiding nationwide logjam during peak season.

The Port of Los Angeles processed 876,611 TEU in June, edging out last year as the best June in the port’s history.

At the mid-point of 2022, Los Angeles has handled more than 5.4 million TEUs, matching last year’s record-setting pace. Next door, the Port of Long Beach also set a monthly record in June, closing out its busiest quarter on record.

Halfway through the year, we’ve been able to reduce the number of vessels waiting to berth by 75%, allowing dockworkers to efficiently process more vessels,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka.

“We’re already beginning to handle back-to-school, fall fashion and year-end holiday goods. Despite inflation and higher-than-usual inventory, we expect cargo volume to remain robust the second half of the year,” Seroka added.

Rail Congestion Threatens Nationwide Logjam

In his monthly media briefing, Seroka was joined by Retired Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, who was recently appointed Port and Supply Chain Envoy to the Biden-Harris Administration Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force. Lyons discussed supply chain challenges nationwide and what is being done to improve the movement of goods and help lower costs for Americans.

June 2022 loaded imports reached 444,680 TEUs for a decrease of 5% compared to the previous year, but 12% higher than the previous five-year average for June.

Exports remain soft, with loaded exports coming in at 93,890 TEUs, a 2.3% decrease compared to 2021. Exports have now declined 39 of the past 44 months at the Port of Los Angeles.

Empty containers reached 338,041 TEUs, an increase of 8.1% compared to last year. “We’ll continue to see these heightened levels of empties repositioned as imports remain strong from Asia,” said Seroka.

Seroka highlighted three takeaways at the midway through 2https://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/port-of-los-angeles–scaled.jpeg022.

“First, looking back, we hit the mark on an early Lunar New Year, handled inventory replenishment in Q2, and reduced waiting vessels by 75%, all this to be ready for an expected early June peak season arrival,” said Seroka.

“Second, looking at the back half of the year, cargo arriving will look different than what’s on the ground now. We’ll be seeing back to school, fall fashion, Halloween and the all-important year-end holiday goods coming across the Pacific in the weeks and months ahead. Even though some retailers have high inventories and may look to discount goods, I expect imports to remain strong, though tapered, versus last year.

“And lastly, all eyes are focussed on improving our rail products, full stop. We now have more than 29,000 rail containers on our docks—that number should be more in the 9,000 unit range. Rail cargo is sitting an average of 7.5 days—it should be two days of dwell time and nothing should be using the 9+ day mark, yet we have 20,000 containers in that important aging category now,” Seroka added.

Clogged Warehouses And Rail Delays Signal New Supply Chain Woes

Seroka concluded that action needs to be taken now to avoid further disruption not just in Southern California, but across the country as peak season kicks off.

“Cargo owners must pick up their boxes at inland rail terminals faster than they are today. The western railroads need to provide crews, engine power and rail cars faster back to the West Coast. Marine terminals, shipping lines and the ports need to provide key data to prioritize evacuation of this cargo quicker. The bottom line, we must take action on this issue immediately to avoid a nationwide logjam,” Seroka said.

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The White House is monitoring labor talks in the logistics industry as unions representing 115,000 rail workers and 22,000 West Coast dockworkers negotiate fresh contracts, but won’t get directly involved in either bargaining process now, its supply-chain envoy said.

“The administration is watching as closely as it can be watched without being a point of interference, which would not be appropriate,” Stephen Lyons said in a virtual briefing Wednesday. “Negotiations are at a place where you’d think the negotiation should be at this particular point.” 

Labor impasses are spreading across the US logistics network in the busiest months of the year for shipping, as retailers stock up on back-to-school and year-end holiday goods. Dock- and railroad-worker unions are currently negotiating contracts with employers, with the latter threatening to strike as soon as July 18.  

Talks between the nation’s largest railroads and workers — which started in January 2020 — are in a 30-day cool-off period after a union rejected a binding mediation offer from the National Mediation Board. Next, the Biden administration could appoint a presidential emergency board to resolve the dispute. 

Rail Congestion Threatens Nationwide Logjam, LA’s Seroka Says

“We’ve got to get these folks some wage increases; we’ve got to address some of these issues,” Lyons said, adding he doesn’t want to get ahead of President Joe Biden as he makes a decision. “We’ll see what happens on the 17th. But I do think there’s a commitment there.”

Contract Discussions

Separately, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents about 70 employers, began discussing a new contract in May and are continuing to do so after their previous pact expired July 1. Officials from the ILWU and the PMA, which represents employers, met with Biden when he visited the Port of Los Angeles last month and have recently reaffirmed their commitment to keeping cargo moving despite the lack of a contract.

Any slowdown in operations at the two ports that are responsible for 42% of all containerized trade with Asia could stoke annual inflation that’s running at the fastest pace since 1981, and damp economic growth.

Biden, who’s pledged to be the most pro-union president in US history, has directed Cabinet members and logistics-area experts to smooth out pandemic-era port logjams that spurred shortages and delays. Lyons and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh have been in touch with both parties, the port envoy said.

Port of Los Angeles Kicks Off Peak Season with Record June

Meanwhile, about 70,000 truck owner-operators in California — home to the nation’s biggest port complex at Los Angeles and Long Beach — are now in limbo as a local gig-work law starts applying to them.  

California’s Assembly Bill 5 requires workers satisfy a three-part test to be considered independent contractors, or else be seen as employees entitled to job benefits. The state’s truck owner-operators must now comply with AB5 after the Supreme Court on June 30 refused to review a case challenging the legislation that sets out the tests for employment-status classification.

‘So Critical’  

On Wednesday, truckers demonstrated against the changes at the port gateways of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, according to the Harbor Trucking Association. 

L.A. operations weren’t affected, and the port had planned for the protest days ahead Executive Director Gene Seroka said.  

“We gave them the breadth and depth and space they needed to voice their opinions but kept this cargo moving; these drivers are very respectful of just that,” Seroka said at the virtual briefing Lyons also attended. “They have a message to put out there and are continuing to do so. I applaud them for coming out here today.”

The Biden administration is still assessing the AB5 issue in California, Lyons said. 

“The truckers are so critical to their supply chain — we’ve got to make sure that we’re setting the conditions to take care of them to the best of our ability.”

America is facing the twin threats of rail and trucker strikes just as signs emerge that its ports on both coasts are getting overloaded once again. The ongoing negotiations between dockworker unions and employees on the US west coast is also fraying nerves for many involved in supply chains.

The US Chamber of Commerce has written to President Biden, urging him to “help resolve the ongoing labor negotiations between the Class I freight railroads and the twelve rail unions by following historic precedent and appointing a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) comprised of individuals who are impartial, belong to the National Academy of Arbitrators, and have direct experience in resolving rail disputes.”

The chamber said, “It is imperative that the Administration act to prevent any disruption to America’s rail service.”

If President Biden does not establish a PEB before 12:01 am EDT on July 18, the railroads and unions could take action to stop work by the 115,000 affected workers, through either a lockout or a strike.

A work stoppage would exacerbate congestion at US ports on all coasts and add complications to already strained supply chains.

If a PEB is appointed, it will have 30 days to make recommendations to settle issues. During that period and for 30 days following release of the recommendations report, the two sides will be prohibited from stopping work.

A White House official said the administration “is going through the standard process that has been used in the past when considering a PEB,” according to a report from Reuters.

Meanwhile, a protest against a new state law, AB5, is set to see many truckers go on strike in California from as early as today with further strikes planned for Monday too.

AB5 intends to limit the deployment of independent contractors and will classify them as employees instead.

The twin threats of road and rail strikes during the peak season comes as data emerges showing congestion is growing at the country’s top two ports, Los Angeles and Long Beach. The number of import containers waiting for more than nine days at both ports has shot up this month to their highest figures in the year to date. Congestion on the east coast has been brewing for many weeks too.

 

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At the height of last year’s “will Christmas be canceled?” supply chain freak-out, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — with the Biden administration’s backing — proposed a highly controversial fee on import containers that sat too long in terminal yards.

The mere threat of this fee, announced on Oct. 25 for implementation Nov. 15, seemed to initially chase more boxes out the gates, as designed. Every week since then, like clockwork, the ports have cited progress and announced that the fee enforcement would be postponed until the following week.

Now, the container dwell numbers are getting worse and becoming increasingly hard to sugarcoat.

Could that proposed fee — $100 a day for each container dwelling too long, compounding an additional $100 per day thereafter — ever actually be charged?

LA/LB long-dwelling boxes doubled since February

The two ports said last Friday that the fee would be delayed again due to a combined 31% drop in aging containers since late October. But if you run the numbers with a different start date you’ll get a very different picture.

The combined number of import containers at both ports dwelling for nine days or more has more than doubled since early February, to 48,932 as of Wednesday.

This is almost exactly the number of containers dwelling on Los Angeles and Long Beach on Nov. 15 (48,905), back on the day the fee plan was originally to be implemented.

The fee plan is designed to compel importers to pull boxes from the terminals and free up space. The concern is that the cure will be worse than the disease. During the inaugural meeting of the National Shipping Advisory Council in October, one member called the fee plan “catastrophic,” another called it “crazy” and another warned it would “cause more problems than we already have.”

Maersk warned a month ago that “the likelihood of the administration implementing the fee has risen significantly.” It still hasn’t happened, but American Shipper was told Wednesday that the fee is being reassessed weekly and could be implemented at any point.

Long-dwelling containers in Long Beach

The proposed fee would target import containers moving by truck that dwell nine or more days at the terminals and containers moving by rail dwelling six or more days. (Long Beach publicly discloses data on import containers dwelling nine days or more, segregated by truck and rail, but not rail-only containers dwelling six to eight days.)

As of Wednesday, Long Beach had 8,992 containers on its terminals for nine days or more on the trucking side, and 11,509 on the rail side, for a total of 20,501. Long Beach pointed out that this is down 22% versus Oct. 28, when it began compiling the numbers.

Sounds like a success. But move the start date just a few days forward and Long Beach’s gain disappears. As far back as Nov. 5, there were fewer containers dwelling nine days or more in Long Beach than there are now. The current count is 25% higher than on Nov. 20, over seven months ago, when there were 16,398 containers dwelling nine days or more at Long Beach.

The Long Beach count hit a low of 9,928 containers dwelling nine days or more on Jan. 28. It’s now more than double that.

Data from Long Beach clearly shows the culprit for the resurgence. Long-dwelling containers moving by truck are around half what they were seven months ago. In contrast, containers moving by rail are piling up, rising steadily since March.

Long-dwelling containers in Los Angeles

The Port of Los Angeles had a total of 70,290 import containers in its terminals as of Wednesday. It pointed out that this is down 26% versus Oct. 24, the day before the announcement of the fee plan. There were 28,431 containers dwelling nine or more days on Wednesday, down 24% from Oct. 24.

Sounds impressive, but yet again, it’s a matter of which dates you compare. In late January, the total number of import containers at the Port of Los Angeles hit a low of around 40,000. It’s up 76% since then.

The number of import containers in Los Angeles dwelling nine days or more sank to around 10,000 in early February. It’s now almost triple that.

‘It’s all about the rail’

As with Long Beach, rail delays are the major culprit in Los Angeles. On Wednesday, 17,010 of the containers dwelling nine or more days — 60% of the total — were on-dock rail containers waiting to load.

Of all the import containers on the terminal, 28,984 or 41% of the total were rail-bound containers.

Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said during a press conference on June 14 that there are normally around 9,000 on-dock rail containers at the terminals, less than a third of the current tally, and there would normally be no on-dock rail containers dwelling nine days or more.

Los Angeles’ rail cargo has increased sixfold since February. Asked about the ongoing issue of long-dwelling containers, Seroka said, “Right now it’s all about the rail. We’re working all out to catch up with this rail cargo.

“If we were to strip out [the rail effect] and bring the rail product back to where it normally should be, we’d have no problem with aging containers and we’d be moving imports fluidly through this port complex.”

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Canadian National Railway has launched a second daily train service connecting Halifax to Toronto and the US Midwest in anticipation of rising volumes, despite a first-quarter decline in cargo handled at the eastern Canadian port.

The rail service, capable of hauling 250 TEU, connects Halifax to Montreal within 26 hours, Toronto in 35 hours, Chicago in 56 hours, and Detroit in 59 hours. Container volumes at Halifax were down 9.5 percent in the first quarter from the same period in 2021, according to the port.

“There are many factors driving the need for additional rail availability through Halifax,” Lane Ferguson, director of communications and marketing for the Port of Halifax, told JOC.com Friday. “Cargo volume is one aspect. This includes the new services through Halifax over the past year and anticipated steady volume over the remainder of 2022.”

Doug MacDonald, CN’s chief marketing officer, wrote in a LinkedIn post on Monday that the Halifax service was selling out daily.

“A second train plan was needed to split the workload and dramatically lowers time to market,” he wrote. “We simply want to get our goods to market as quickly as possible and added additional service on the East Coast. CN’s Eastern corridor has plenty of capacity to grow and add new trains.”

In April, PSA International completed a deal to become Halifax’s sole operator after acquiring the Fairview Cove Container Terminal, also known as Ceres Halifax.

A lack of drayage capacity in Toronto and Montreal for receiving cargo from Prince Rupert and Vancouver is increasingly putting upstream pressure on the West Coast ports, keeping rail dwells elevated at marine terminals and slowing the inland movement of Asian imports.

Vancouver has been grappling with persistent bouts of congestion since last summer due to a series of mishaps — wildfires and flooding that crippled road and rail infrastructure in British Columbia, and sub-freezing temperatures this winter that compounded the rail problems. Cargo flow through Prince Rupert has been relatively smoother. In addition to serving markets in eastern Canada, the ports also serve as gateways for US-bound cargo.

Cargo volumes this year highlight the fact that inland bottlenecks, not container volumes, are the cause of the ports’ woes. Vancouver’s container volume was down 13.7 percent in January through May from the year-ago period, according to the port. Prince Rupert data shows the port’s volume was up 1 percent through the first five months of the year.

“Rail dwell is challenging across the port due to capacity constraints in the network and inland terminals, and this is not isolated to terminals within the Port of Vancouver,” GCT Canada, which operates the Deltaport and Vanterm terminals in Vancouver, told JOC.com in a statement.

The congestion at rail hubs in eastern Canada is a direct result of drayage capacity shortages at those facilities. “It’s an on-going situation with both railroads (Canadian Pacific and Canadian National),” said Julia Kuzeljevich, public affairs manager at the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association (CIFFA).

“There are fewer drivers in Toronto to handle the volume, creating a backlog/congestion issue. On a YTD basis, total truck visits declined by 18.5 percent,” CIFFA said in a bulletin to its membership. CIFFA noted that the drayage problem, which first surfaced in Toronto in May, has extended to Montreal.

Railroad metering cargo

As a result of the congestion at their inland facilities, the railroads are metering, or managing how many trains they are deploying to Vancouver and Prince Rupert. This is causing rail containers to back up at the marine terminals because of reduced train capacity. However, the situation at marine terminals is fluid, with rail dwells changing from day to day.

For example, at GCT Deltaport, the largest container terminal in Vancouver, containers for both railroads were dwelling an average of seven days or longer last Tuesday, according to numbers posted on the Port of Vancouver website. The average dwell on Wednesday dropped to five to seven days for CP containers, and three to five days for CN containers. On Thursday, the CP containers were still dwelling five to seven days, but the CN dwells shot back up over seven days, according to the port. Dwells of longer than three days cause congestion problems.

When the container dwells begin to build for one of the railroads, hampering operations, the terminals immediately push more containers to the other railroad because those containers can be vacated more smoothly, which helps to relieve overall congestion at the marine terminal. However, the second railroad’s operations can quickly become overloaded.

Canada’s whiplash

Although the whiplash effect of inland rail congestion on West Coast ports has been pervasive in the US the past year, it has not been a serious problem in Canada until recently.

“It never happened before,” Maksim Mihic, CEO and general manager at DP World Canada, told JOC.com. DP World operates the Centerm and Fraser Surrey Docks terminals in Vancouver and Prince Rupert’s Fairview terminal.

“We’re seeing elevated dwells because of (delays in) Toronto and Montreal,” said Brian Friesen, vice president of trade development and communications at the Port of Prince Rupert. However, DP World two weeks ago opened a near-dock surge yard near the Fairview terminal and has already begun to move containers there for temporary storage, so that timely move should prevent rail congestion at the port from worsening, Friesen said.

Neither the ports nor the railroads are ready to forecast a return to normal. “The drayage and warehouse capacity constraints in Toronto and Montreal have become so chronic that we are now in a situation of a potential back-up for some time until this gets addressed,” CN said in a statement.

CP, which said “heavy volumes” of intermodal cargo are also contributing to excessive container dwells at the ports, adds that the main issue in the supply chain can be traced to long-dwelling containers at the inland rail ramps. “To maintain network efficiency, all participants in the supply chain must work together to pick up and return equipment promptly,” CP said in a statement.

 

West Coast longshore employers and dockworkers engaged in negotiations for a new contract are discussing a proposal that would allow marine terminals to open their gates at 6 a.m., according to the president of terminal operator SSA Containers. The potential change has the support of truckers who work the ports, saying it would add an hour to what they consider the most productive time of the day.

Allowing the so-called “double-flex” gates is not a controversial issue, said Ed DeNike, president of SSA Containers, who referenced the extended gate proposal at the JOC Port Performance webcast Tuesday. It’s just a matter of working out the details during the ongoing coastwide contract negotiations in San Francisco between the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), he said.

“It’s not possible under the current contract. We can flex at 7 a.m. Maybe there’s a chance to flex at 6 a.m.,” DeNike said. SSA Marine operates container terminals in Seattle, Oakland, and Long Beach.

Harbor truckers say getting earlier access each day to containers would fit in nicely with the schedules of truckers, shippers, and warehouses. “The expanded hours would definitely help,” Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association, told JOC.com Wednesday. “We’ve wanted this for some time.”

The long-standing work shifts, as specified in the current coastwide contract that expires July 1, are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., and the late night “hoot” shift from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. The contract also allows terminals to “flex” the start times one hour early, but not by two hours. Longshoremen by contract provisions earn overtime pay whenever they start early.

Warehouses and truckers say the early-morning hours fit best into their operations. “The earlier the better,” said Scott Weiss, vice president technical sales at Performance Team, which operates warehouses throughout the country.

 ‘Big line of trucks’ for 7 a.m. start

In order to open their gates at 6 a.m. without the double-flex provision, terminals would have to run the entire hoot shift from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m., which is quite costly, as longshoremen on that shift are paid for eight hours of work for five hours on the job. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, at the urging of the White House port productivity task force, have experimented sporadically with hoot shifts since last fall.

Terminals that have experimented with the hoot shifts said they generated little, if any, truck traffic because most warehouses in Southern California do not operate on a 24/7 basis. However, DeNike said trucks begin lining up at 6 a.m. each morning at SSA-operated terminals awaiting the opening of the 7 a.m. flex gate. “It’s quite a big line of trucks,” he said.

Schrap said that in order to make the 6 a.m. gates truly beneficial for truckers, all 12 container terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach should open at that time so drivers can build those gates hours into their schedules. “The most important thing is consistency throughout the harbor,” he said.

The PMA and ILWU have a media blackout during the negotiations and do not answer questions on specific issues under discussion.