{"id":1953,"date":"2022-06-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/?p=1953"},"modified":"2022-11-11T10:56:50","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T02:56:50","slug":"pma-ilwu-discussing-earlier-start-times-at-west-coast-terminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/pma-ilwu-discussing-earlier-start-times-at-west-coast-terminals\/","title":{"rendered":"PMA-ILWU discussing earlier start times at West Coast terminals"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Allowing the so-called \u201cdouble-flex\u201d 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\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not possible under the current contract. We can flex at 7 a.m. Maybe there\u2019s a chance to flex at 6 a.m.,\u201d DeNike said. SSA Marine operates container terminals in Seattle, Oakland, and Long Beach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Harbor truckers say getting earlier access each day to containers would fit in nicely with the schedules of truckers, shippers, and warehouses. \u201cThe expanded hours would definitely help,\u201d Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association, told JOC.com Wednesday. \u201cWe\u2019ve wanted this for some time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201choot\u201d shift from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. The contract also allows terminals to \u201cflex\u201d the start times one hour early, but not by two hours. Longshoremen by contract provisions earn overtime pay whenever they start early.<\/span><\/p>\n

Warehouses and truckers say the early-morning hours fit best into their operations. \u201cThe earlier the better,\u201d said Scott Weiss, vice president technical sales at Performance Team, which operates warehouses throughout the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>\u2018Big line of trucks\u2019 for 7 a.m. start<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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. \u201cIt\u2019s quite a big line of trucks,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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. \u201cThe most important thing is consistency throughout the harbor,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The PMA and ILWU have a media blackout during the negotiations and do not answer questions on specific issues under discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1965,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions\/1965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}