Reid/ETC International Freight System
International Shipping. Global Logistics, Air, Ocean.
Your update on the pending strike. View the JOC article below:
Bill Mongelluzzo, Associate Editor | Nov 28, 2012 1:50PM EST
Employers in Southern California are bracing for a possible escalation of labor actions because International Longshore and Warehouse Union dockworkers refused to abide by an arbitrator’s decision late Tuesday to return to their jobs at the APM terminal in Los Angeles.
The escalation could come in the form of striking office clerical workers posting pickets at other terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach, which presumably would be honored by ILWU dockworkers. Another possibility is that employers at all 14 shipping lines and terminals could rally around APM Terminals and lock out the striking office clerical workers at their facilities.
ILWU dockworkers Wednesday morning refused to cross a picket line that was placed at the APM terminal Tuesday by striking office workers represented by the Office Clerical Unit of ILWU Local 63.
The OCU members who process shipping documentation have been working without a contract since June 2010. The OCU is affiliated with the larger ILWU, but its contract is separate from the dockworkers’ coastwide contract.
When the dockworkers Tuesday honored the OCU picket line, the Pacific Maritime Association employers’ group immediately appealed to the local area arbitrator that is chosen jointly by the ILWU and the PMA.
The area arbitrator ruled late Tuesday that the OCU action did not constitute a bona fide picket under the waterfront contract. He ordered the dockworkers to report to their jobs for the day shift Wednesday at the APM terminal.
The dockworkers refused to do so, and the terminal remained shut down. The other dozen container terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach had no pickets Wednesday and were working normally.
When the ILWU dockworkers Wednesday morning refused to perform cargo-handling at the APM terminal, the PMA appealed its case to the Coast Labor Relations Committee in San Francisco. All eyes were on that development Wednesday morning.
Two Maersk vessels were in port when the OCU pickets went up on Tuesday, and they were idled by the job action, said Alan McCorkle, managing director of APM’s Pier 400 terminal in Los Angeles. Three additional vessels from various lines were due in during the following 24 hours, McCorkle said on Wednesday.
The cause of the ruckus in Southern California is the inability of the OCU office workers and their employers to reach a new contract agreement during the past 2 ½ years.
OCU President John Fageaux charges that the shipping lines and terminal Operators are using computer technology to outsource OCU work to other states and other countries. Stephen Berry, the lawyer who is negotiating on behalf of employers, said those charges are false. In fact, Berry said Tuesday that employers have agreed to provide the OCU with a paper trail of all correspondence and will fine employers who outsource OCU work.
Berry said Wednesday the situation has reached a dangerous stage. He said the employers and the OCU had no plans to meet. “There obviously is substantial risk,” he said. The risk involves OCU pickets spreading to other terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach. If that happens, the 14 employers might have to take defensive action, such as locking out the OCU workers at all facilities, Berry said.
We will be discussing labor issues in detail at the 2013 TPM Conference. Click here for more information -- www.jocevents.com/tpm2013
William B. Cassidy, Senior Editor | Nov 27, 2012 4:13PM EST
When Hurricane Sandy hit Elizabeth, N.J., New England Motor Freight’s terminal yard filled with five feet of water. Fortunately, the storm surge didn’t flood the trucking company’s headquarters and terminal building and its tractor-trailers were safely parked on high ground, said Chief Operating Officer Tom Connery.
“We were lucky, we didn’t lose a single piece of equipment because we prepared and we planned ahead,” Connery said. That planning helped the less-than-truckload carrier get back in business quickly in the days following Hurricane Sandy, while the Port of New York and New Jersey and many customers and other motor carriers struggled to recover.
“The biggest issue was not our ability to operate, it was our customers’ ability to receive freight,” Connery said. “We had customers who couldn’t open” because they lacked power or suffered serious damage. “It was a minimum of five business days in New Jersey and Long Island before things really returned to normal,” he said.
Business is booming now at NEMF, Connery said, partly because of the demand for rebuilding and relief supplies. “We’re extremely busy right now,” he said shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday. “There’s going to be some uptick in the business related to rebuilding and construction. We do business with a lot of big home supply stores, and their volume ramped up dramatically over the past two weeks.”
This isn’t the first time a hurricane threatened NEMF. Last year, the carrier weathered Hurricane Irene, again moving its trucks to higher ground, and driving some equipment up onto its loading docks. Located at the corner of North Avenue East and McLester Street in Elizabeth, N.J., the company is close to Newark Bay and the APM and Maher Terminals facilities at the Elizabeth-Port Authority Marine Terminal.
“I heard there were over 1,000 tractors lost in the port area,” Connery said. “We weren’t able to pick up containers at the port for the first four days after the storm. The port was completely closed because they had so much damage.”
When NEMF finally was able to pick up containers, it found many had been breached, spoiling a portion of the freight. “We’re unloading containers and finding the bottom foot of a given skid is wet,” Connery said. Port terminals are still clearing a major backlog of containers stranded by Hurricane Sandy, with the Port Newark Container Terminal open extended hours.
The so-called super storm vindicated NEMF’s decision to install generators at all of its terminals in the wake of prior hurricanes. “We’ve been adding them during the past few years in anticipation of this kind of event,” Connery said. When Sandy hit Oct. 29-30, NEMF closed five terminals in New Jersey and New York’s Long Island for a day. “It didn’t make any sense to have people out on the road,” the COO said.
At least four NEMF employees lost their homes, he said. The company is supporting ongoing relief efforts in the hardest hit areas of the New Jersey shore, Staten Island, N.Y., and Breezy Point and the Rockaways in Queens, N.Y.
“We just hauled half a trailer of dog food to a shelter on Staten Island, and are supporting a toy drive by a group of high schools,” Connery said. “We’ve been contacted by customers, employees and outside agencies looking for help” with transportation, he said. “We try to accommodate as many as possible.”