ETC International Freight System
Overseas shipping, freight forwarders in California, Global Logistics
Update from JOC
LA, Long Beach Act to Ease Strike Impact
Bill Mongelluzzo, Associate Editor | Dec 06, 2012 2:21PM EST
LONG BEACH — The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are making adjustments in their operations in an effort to reduce the economic impact that the eight-day office clerical workers strike will have on port customers.
In fact, all members of the port community, from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to the marine terminal operators, seem to be pulling together to minimize disruptions that would be expected to follow an eight-day shutdown of a port complex that handles more than 14 million 20-foot container units a year.
The port authorities have notified their customers that containers idled at their facilities during the strike will not be subject to the normal storage charges, known as demurrage, that kick in after free time expires.
At the Port of Los Angeles, for example, an imported container is granted four days free time before demurrage is charged. An export container has six days free time. Long Beach has a similar tariff.
Geraldine Knatz, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles terminal opperators that the port has extended free time on all merchandise through Friday. Containers that were on the docks Nov. 27, at the beginning of the strike by the Office Clerical Unit of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63, will not be charged demurrage. Seven container terminals in Los Angeles were shut down during the strike.
Long Beach notified its customers that the port is waiving its portion of cargo fees incurred or impacted by the forced terminal closures. Three terminals in Long Beach were idled by the strike. Long Beach advised cargo interests to contact their carriers, terminal operators or other service providers for more details on cargo fees.
Complete coverage of West Coast labor disputes
Customs assigned more staff to the harbor when the terminals opened on Wednesday. Dan Meylor, customs administration manager at Carmichael International, said additional Customs personnel were manning the container examination stations and the scanning devices that Customs uses to search containers for weapons of mass destruction and contraband. Customs was clearing entry documentation efficiently, Meylor said.
Terminal operators throughout the harbor added early and late flex gates and will have night and weekend gates to dissipate the backlog.
Harbor truckers reported Thursday that the harbor was busy, but except for a few terminals, congestion was not a major problem. However, truckers are concerned that congestion could come back with a vengeance on Monday.
The new weekly rotation of vessels in the trans-Pacific will arrive over the weekend. Also, vessels that were diverted last week to Oakland to drop off Northern California cargo will be back in port. When those containers are mixed in with cargo being unloaded now from vessels that were sitting at anchor in the harbor, it appears the coming week will be especially busy at the ports.
EU Finalizes Plan to Boost Rail Competition
JOC Staff | Dec 06, 2012 10:37AM EST
The European Union is finalizing plans to compel railway companies to split their freight and passenger businesses from track management to ease entrance into the industry for new operators.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive, is set to unveil its latest liberalization program — the so-called “Fourth Railway Package” — in the New Year in a bid to ease the market dominance of state-owned companies in the majority of the EU’s 27 member states.
“Without separation [of train operation and track management], a further opening of the market will not really create more competition,” European Transport Commissioner Slim Kallis said in a press interview last month.
The Commission is facing stiff opposition to the proposed unbundling of rail operations from Germany and France, the EU’s largest freight markets.
The EU liberalized international freight traffic in 2003, followed by the opening of domestic services in 2007, but most markets are still dominated by state-owned operators, such as France’s SNCF, which carries around 80 percent of the nation’s cargo traffic.
Deutsche Bahn accounts for 75 percent of its domestic German cargo market, and the state-owned firm is the leading player in several other EU countries, including the UK, the Netherlands and Spain, following the acquisition of private operators.
