Market Updates

 

The container shipping industry in Western Canada is bracing for the possibility of an extended strike at the ports of Prince Rupert and Vancouver after longshore workers went on strike Saturday morning as threatened over a contract dispute.

 

The ports are adjusting operations to mitigate cargo buildup as both sides remain far apart on how to best fill existing heavy-duty maintenance jobs and whether the union’s remit should expand to other types of maintenance jobs at facilities, according to two sources close to the matter.

 

The Canada affiliate of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and waterfront employers also face a wide divide on what they’ll accept in salary increases, paralleling the major stumbling block US West Coast employers and longshore labor finally overcame in announcing a tentative deal on June 15 after more than a year of negotiations.

 

Canadian shippers moving cargo through the British Columbia ports have few options for diversions. The US West Coast longshore union on Thursday signaled its solidarity in a letter to its Canadian counterpart. The International Longshoremen’s Association, which handles cargo on the US and East Coasts, went a step farther, pledging Wednesday to not handle any diverted cargo from Vancouver and Prince Rupert. Through connecting rail networks, US importers and exporters also ship goods through the British Columbia ports and have more alternative routing options.

 

After ILWU Canada workers began a strike at 8 a.m. Pacific time on Saturday, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority said to mitigate backlogs it was adjusting how it directs and manages anchorage. For example, vessel anchorages in the inner harbor, where DP Centerm and GCT Vanterm operate, are now limited to 48 hours. Average rail dwell times at Vancouver marine terminals were under five days, according to port authority metrics, reflecting generally fluid cargo flow before containers stopped moving Saturday morning.

 

Late night bargaining sessions on Thursday and through Friday night between the Canada ILWU and employers, with from the assistance Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, failed to produce a contract agreement to replace the one that expired at the end of March. The ILWU filed a 72-hour strike notice with the federal government on Wednesday.

 

Canadian West Coast employers locked out the ILWU for less than 24 hours in May 2019 after an impasse in contract negotiations. Semi-automation, centered on the then new rail project at GCT Deltaport, frustrated negotiations, and now color current talks due to the prospect of some level of automation at a planned C$3 billion (US$ 2.2 billion) Vancouver terminal, Robert Bank Terminal 2.

 

Federal Labor Minister Seamus O’Regan on Saturday tweeted that mediators were still at the table, adding that the Trudeau government “cannot emphasize this enough — the best deals for both parties are reached at the table.”

 

All eyes on Ottawa 

 

The government took a similar approach in 2021 to Montreal port strikes, signaling support for both sides to work out their differences through negotiation and praising the merits of collective bargaining.  Parliament passed back-to-work legislation after four weeks of sporadic port disruption at Montreal, ending the strike and forcing an arbitrated contract.

 

With Parliament out of session and unable to potentially pass back-to-work legislation, the pressure is on the Trudeau government to use its political capital to force a deal between ILWU Canada and the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is generally viewed within the Canadian shipping industry as having acted too slowly — and weakly — when containerized supply chains were significantly disrupted over the last three years.

 

The stakes are high this time, given the size of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, the country’s largest and third-largest ports by volume, respectively. Vancouver and Prince Rupert handle more than C$800 million (US $604 million) in trade daily, equating to a quarter of all of Canada’s trade in goods, according to the BCMEA.

 

Canadian industry on Wednesday urged the government to act, though, it expressed its support for collective bargaining. Canada’s supply chains are already fragile and the strike will ripple through agriculture to manufacturing industries, while consumer and businesses grapple with inflation, wrote Robin Guy, vice-president and deputy leader of government relations at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and David van Hemmen is vice-president at the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

 

“We are seeing signs that goods destined for Canada are already being routed to other ports, adding costs and increasing the environmental footprint of trade, all to Canadians’ detriment,” the duo wrote in the Globe and Mail.

 

Source from JOC.com

Maritime employers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) late Wednesday announced they had reached a tentative agreement on a new six-year contract covering all 29 ports along the US West Coast.

 

The deal, subject to ratification by both parties, ends 13 months of contentious negotiations marked by on-again, off-again job actions that disrupted port operations on the coast and diverted growing volumes of cargo to the East and Gulf coasts.

 

“We are…pleased to turn our full attention back to the operation of the West Coast ports,” the ILWU and Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) said in a joint statement, noting the new deal “was reached with assistance from Acting US Secretary of Labor Julie Su.”

 

The statement said the parties would not release details of the tentative agreement “at this time.”

 

The contract ratification processes normally takes at least one month.

 

“…The tentative agreement delivers important stability for workers, for employers, and for our country’s supply chain,” Su said in a statement.

 

The joint statement implies that the job actions that began last fall, such as the refusal of some ILWU locals to dispatch sufficient labor in key job classifications or the late dispatching of dockworkers, would come to an end.

 

Talks were entering critical phase 

 

Entering this week, sources told the Journal of Commerce the negotiations had entered a critical phase in which the talks could go either way – a tentative settlement by the end of the week or a possible strike or employer lockout. The importance of this week was demonstrated by the arrival of Su in San Francisco on Monday following a week of labor actions that disrupted port operations up and down the West Coast. Su, after meeting with the ILWU and PMA on Monday, has stayed in the Bay area since, remaining on call as needed.

 

The deal will be met with relief from shippers and retail groups, who expressed constant dismay at the port disruptions and diversion of cargo away from the West Coast over the past year.

 

Uncertainty over the reliability of West Coast labor has had a devastating impact on the region’s market share as retailers diverted a large volume of discretionary cargo to the East and Gulf coasts. The West Coast’s share of US imports from Asia declined from 62% in January-May 2021 to 58.6% during the first five months of 2022 and 56% through the first five months of this year, according to PIERS, a sister product of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global.

 

“The supply chain and economy will benefit greatly from this new contract, and the San Pedro Bay’s role as the most important gateway for trans-Pacific trade will be enhanced,” Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, tweeted Wednesday night after the deal was announced.

 

Source from JOC.com

Bill Mongelluzzo, Senior Editor | Jun 9, 2023, 3:10 PM EDT

 

A vessel backlog that developed earlier this week at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach amid a lack of longshore labor was cleared Friday, a sign that progress was being made in coastwide contract negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and maritime employers.

 

Talks between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents ocean carriers and marine terminals, continued in San Francisco Friday for a third straight day. That in itself was another positive indicator, sources said, with negotiations hitting the 13-month mark this weekend.

 

Sources said the normal complement of workers – known as “lashers” — who secure the top row of containers on a vessel was dispatched Thursday night and early Friday in Los Angeles and Long Beach, allowing ships to be worked without disruption. The ILWU locals in Southern California refused to dispatch sufficient lashers earlier this week, causing delays that resulted in a backlog of vessels.

 

“It’s good today,” a source close to vessel operations in Los Angeles-Long Beach said Friday. “Our labor (orders) were filled last night and today.”

 

Disruption continues in Seattle, Tacoma 

 

Kip Louttit, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, said the backlog of container ships that were forced to slow-steam or stop at anchor had cleared by the day shift on Friday. Four vessels scheduled to arrive by midday Friday would most likely go directly to berth, Louttit said.

 

Cargo handling in Oakland, meanwhile, was normal for a second straight day.

 

“The Port of Oakland’s marine terminals are open and operating normally (Friday),” a spokesperson for the port said in a statement to the Journal of Commerce. ”The number of vessels waiting for a berth in Oakland is five, which is about average.”

 

Operations at Seattle and Tacoma, however, were “still bad” Friday, another source said, as job actions by dockworkers continued. Crane productivity at the Port of Seattle, which plunged to less than 10 percent of normal this week and was only slightly better in Tacoma, remained exceptionally poor on Friday.

 

The PMA said in a statement Friday that Seattle and Tacoma “continue to suffer significant slowdowns as a result of targeted ILWU work actions.”

 

The ILWU declined comment.

 

The fact that the ILWU and PMA held contract negotiations Friday for the third straight day is viewed by sources with knowledge of the talks as a positive sign. In recent weeks, the two sides had been meeting about once per week and were reportedly making little progress, which was demonstrated by the cargo-handling disruptions launched last week by ILWU locals that were intended to pressure the PMA into making concessions on wages.

 

The two sides have been far apart on the wage issue, with the ILWU reportedly demanding an almost 100% increase in the straight-time hourly wage, with the PMA’s offer said to be in the low single-digits.

 

“Even though some port operations have improved, the ILWU’s repeated disruptive work actions at strategic ports along the West Coast are increasingly causing companies to divert cargo to more customer-friendly and reliable locations along the Gulf and East Coasts,” the PMA said in its statement. “It is difficult to win back cargo once it’s diverted.”

Source from JOC.com

US West Coast longshore labor is flexing its power to seek significantly higher wages and manning changes that would put two workers rather than one on some port equipment, sources said Monday, continuing a fourth day of disruptions at some marine terminals.

 

Several container terminals were hit with job actions in Seattle, Long Beach and Los Angeles on Monday, according to sources. While the severity of port disruptions on Monday was less than on Friday when dockworkers shut down a number of terminals along the coast from Long Beach to Seattle, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) are still far apart on salary and manning levels, according to four sources close to the negotiations.

 

One operator at a Los Angeles marine terminal said he didn’t receive any of the labor he requested from the ILWU hiring hall on Monday, adding, “We probably will idle the ship today.”

 

A spokesperson for SSA Marine said labor gangs working four vessels in Seattle were fired on Monday because of low productivity on the cranes. SSA, which operates three terminals in Long Beach, said two of the terminals there have not worked an international ship since Saturday.

 

The sporadic ILWU job actions that continued over the weekend have included slowing down ship-to-shore crane productivity from the normal 25 to 26 lifts per crane per hour to about 20 lifts per hour, or even lower.

 

The PMA slammed the ILWU in a statement Monday for continuing “concerted and disruptive work actions.”

 

“Union leaders are implementing many familiar disruption tactics from their job action playbook, including refusing to dispatch workers to marine terminals, slowing operations, and making unfounded health and safety claims,” PMA said. “The ILWU’s coast-wide work actions since June 2 are forcing retailers, manufacturers and other shippers to shift cargo away from the West Coast in favor of ports on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Much of the diverted cargo may never return to the West Coast.”

 

The ILWU declined to comment. But the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) issued a statement saying it “stands in solidarity” with the ILWU, claiming the union has been “disparaged by the PMA through a calculated media campaign designed to boost its contractual leverage at the expense of West Coast dockworkers.”

 

Spokespersons at port authorities said most of their terminals that were affected Friday and over the weekend received full labor allocations for Monday’s day shift.

 

White House monitoring situation

 

During a briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration was monitoring contract negotiations closely and pointed to both sides tentatively agreeing on undisclosed “certain key issues.” The White House was “going to continue to encourage all parties to work in good faith toward a mutually beneficial resolution that ensures that workers get fair benefits, equality of life and the wages they deserve,” Jean-Pierre said.

 

The job actions taking place on the West Coast in recent days prompted the National Retail Federation (NRF) on Monday to send its third letter to the Biden administration urging federal intervention in the negotiations between the ILWU and the PMA, which represents shipping lines and terminal operators, since the coastwide contract negotiations began in May 2022.

 

“As we enter the peak shipping season for the holidays, these additional disruptions will force retailers and other important shipping partners to continue to shift cargo away from the West Coast ports until a new labor contract is established,” David French, the NRF’s senior vice president of government relations, said in a letter to the Biden administration. “It is imperative that the parties return to the negotiating table. We urge the administration to mediate to ensure the parties quickly finalize a new contract without additional disruptions.”

 

Union seeking significant salary hike

 

Negotiations are said to be hung up over an unprecedented demand by the ILWU for a wage increase of $7.50 per hour for each year of the proposed six-year contract, which would increase longshore wages by close to 100% over the life of the contract. Two sources close to the talks confirmed the union’s wage demand.

 

By comparison, wage increases over the past 20 years have been in the range of 50 cents to $1.50 per hour for each year of the contract, according to the PMA’s annual report.

 

The ILWU is looking to take advantage of the record profits carriers booked in 2021 and 2022 amid pandemic-induced disruption in the global supply chain that came amid historic import levels from Asia and massive consumer spending. But those profits have since diminished as the ocean shipping market returned to normalcy with consumers pulling back on spending their discretionary income on merchandise.

 

The ILWU is also reportedly demanding that certain cargo-handling equipment, such as yard tractors, be assigned to two dockworkers. That has long been a practice with ship-to-shore cranes, which require a higher level of skill. Under the ILWU’s demand, two drivers would be assigned to each yard tractor, which means one longshoreman would work for four hours and get paid for eight, and the second longshoreman would work the remaining four hours of the shift and get paid for eight.

 

Another significant issue in the negotiations involves retroactive pay, sources say. In each contract negotiation, there has been an unspoken agreement between the PMA and ILWU that whatever wage increase is agreed upon in the new contract, it would be retroactive back to the expiration of the previous contract, a source told the Journal of Commerce. That means the PMA and ILWU have been operating under the assumption that the wage increase being discussed for the new contract would be retroactive to July 1, 2022, when the prior deal expired.

 

But with negotiations now past the one-year mark, the PMA has reportedly told the ILWU that retroactive pay will be off the table as of July 1 if a tentative contract is not reached by then, according to the source. That PMA strategy is designed to provide a sense of urgency so the ILWU will reach an agreement soon rather than dragging the negotiations out further, the source said.

 

Terminal operators told the Journal of Commerce that if ILWU job actions stopped and cargo handling went smoothly Monday, coastwide negotiations between the union and PMA would resume on Tuesday. But it’s uncertain if that will happen now.