Although the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association have reached a tentative contract agreement, Shelly Boshart Davis of Boshart Trucking and BOSSCO Trading in Tangent believes it’s only the first step in getting shipping from West Coast ports back to normal.
The ILWU represents 13,600 workers and the PMA represents management of 29 West Coast ports.
“I’m afraid the problem is going to get worse before it gets better,” Davis said. “It’s going to be a nightmare for a few weeks, if not for a month or two.”
Davis said the reason is twofold: the ports are trying to clear as many ships as possible as quickly as possible, and since Hanjin shipping has pulled out of the Port of Portland, more containers will have to be hauled to and from Tacoma and Seattle.
“We can pick up an empty container in Portland in the morning, fill it and get it back up there the same day,” Davis said. “We can’t do that when we have to pick up containers in Tacoma or Seattle.”
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And, Davis said, the lead time provided shippers has been greatly reduced during this transition period.
“We usually have two to three days leeway, but right now, we have only one day to get the containers to the port,” Davis said. “In the past, we used to have six days and we’d know which six days of the month ahead of time.”
Davis said one ship, the Copenhagen, has sat at the Port of Portland since Feb. 5.
“We’ve got 40 containers waiting to get on that ship,” she said. “It’s headed for Korea. Some of those containers have been sitting up there since Jan. 15.”
Davis said the good news is that grass seed straw isn’t perishable like some of the food items that have been affected by labor issues.
“We don’t know how it’s going to work now that we’ll have to move more containers to Tacoma and Seattle,” Davis said. “We may also use Northwest Container in Portland, but we don’t know about the rates yet.”
Davis said contract talks moved quickly once President Obama sent Labor Secretary Tom Perez to San Francisco to help mediate.
“He told both sides that if they didn’t come to some agreement, he was going to move the negotiations to Washington, D.C.,” Davis said. “We don’t know the details of the contract, but we’re hoping it’s a good one.”
Davis said social media “blew up” Friday when the contract settlement was announced.
She said the contract still has to be ratified by ILWU members, and that could take several weeks.
“It’s like they turned on the fire hoses,” Davis said. “They are ordering units and calling for more people. It’s going to be hard to keep up with everything that’s going on in the next couple weeks.”
As of late Monday, the company had 103 containers sitting at the port waiting to be loaded. About 45 were loaded over the weekend.
Davis said the family-run operation did not have to lay off any employees, but hours were cut back over the last two weeks.
“It’s hard on people to miss two or three days pay on their checks,” Davis said. “We were glad we didn’t have to lay anyone off, but we would have understood if people had to quit to find other jobs. We’re just happy it didn’t get to that point.”
The strike cost an estimated $2 billion per day in lost revenues.
Dock workers have been working since July 1 without a contract.