The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are entering their third week of disruptive labour actions, which are now extending to the Port of Oakland, the Pacific Maritime Association reports.
The result is extreme productivity falloffs the past two weeks at the southern California ports, which are the busiest container ports in the US.
More than a third of the vessels in southern California have had a productivity drop of over 20 percent, and over one in 10 have had productivity fall over 30 percent.
Productivity levels at the Port of Oakland have dropped on average 15 percent with some terminals showing productivity declines of over 40 percent.
In order to maintain schedules, many vessels have been forced to sail leaving cargo and empty containers on the docks.
In order to offset the slowdown as much as possible, terminal operators have hired additional labour, and ships have been forced to burn more fuel and incur the resultant higher costs to make up time lost as a result of the lower port productivity.
Negotiations began on March 17 with the ILWU refusing to extend the six-year labour agreement after it expired on July 1
CargonewsAsia
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