Julie Su testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on her nomination for Secretary of Labor on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 20, 2023.
Amanda Andrade-Rhodes | Reuters
President Biden’s acting Labor Secretary Julie Sue is currently in communication with labor and port management representatives in an effort to help broker a deal amid heightened tensions at ports up and down the West Coast.
Sue, who serves as Cal Labor and Workforce Development Secretary through 2021, has a longstanding relationship with both parties and is helping to maintain communication at the negotiating table and move toward an eventual contract between the International Terminals and Warehouses Federation and the Pacific Maritime Association.
The Labor Department confirmed Acting Secretary Sue’s involvement but declined to comment further.
President Biden nominated Acting Secretary of State Sue on Feb. 28 to replace Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, who stepped down in March. Sue has the backing of a number of unions, including the United Mine Workers Union, NABTU, LiUNA, IBEW and AFL-CIO, but also business leaders, including a letter to the Senate supporting her nomination of 250 executives, and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce . The Senate previously confirmed her to serve as undersecretary of labor on July 13, 2021.
Industry calls for the Biden administration to intervene in the situation at West Coast ports have grown, from the National Retail Federation to the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who in a statement on Friday expressed concern for the “serious situation in Los Angeles and Long Beach.” port shutdowns,” which could cost the U.S. economy nearly $5 billion a day. Estimates suggest that broader strikes on the West Coast could cost about $1 billion a day.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Suzanne Clark wrote in a letter to President Biden: “The best outcome is a voluntary agreement between the negotiating parties. But we fear that the current sticking point — the impasse over wages and benefits — will not be resolved. “.
Concerns run high along supply chains, from trucking to rail and sea. Billions of dollars in cargo are stranded outside ports, with container congestion and delays lengthening service and turnaround times. Further complicating the logistics company’s crisis planning is the overwhelming vote by ILWU Canadian workers to authorize strikes at Canadian west coast ports, as well as low water levels in the Panama Canal, which has made alternative trade routes between the West Coast and Canada’s East Coast ports more difficult. .
Logistics managers trying to grapple with growing port congestion say the Biden administration’s involvement is welcome news, but real conditions at ports remain tense and financial consequences such as late delivery fines are increasingly likely.
“We’re not getting valid turns from drivers,” said Paul Brashier, vice president of haulage and intermodal for ITS Logistics. dues. “
According to a statement released on June 10, the Pacific Maritime Association claimed that the ILWU continued to slow down “intentionally”.
ILWU declined to comment.
Negotiations between the PMA and ILWU are said to have stalled over issues such as wages and automation. While both sides claim to have made significant progress in the spring, the ILWU described the recent actions as rank-and-file union workers “expressing their grievances.”
“We will not be content with an economic package that does not recognize the heroic efforts and personal sacrifices of the ILWU employees who have driven the shipping industry to record profits,” ILWU International President Willia Adams said in a recent statement.
The ILWU noted that ocean carriers and terminal operators have made $500 billion in profits over the past two years, although these profit levels have declined as supply chain prices have fallen.
Port of Seattle tops West Coast port congestion list
While ports up and down the West Coast have had problems, including California’s largest ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, the Port of Seattle tops the congestion charts. Due to the slow pace of work, SSA Terminals sent workers home for lunch Monday through Friday last week. Saturday, Entire ports were shut down after labor was not filled.
The lack of labor to move the containers on and off the ships has caused delays for the container ships as the ships remain at docks at the Port of Seattle. Maersk Cairo has been calling since 3 June; APL La Havre has been calling since 5 June and Maersk Cardiff and Etoile since 8 June.
According to MarineTraffic, as of Monday afternoon, there were currently six container ships berthed, with four more container ships coming in from the sea and expected to arrive within the next seven to nine days. All docks have moorings for boats and no new spaces.
“Seattle is the most affected,” said Captain Adil Ashiq, head of MarineTraffic North America. According to MarineTraffic, the average turnaround time for container ships in Seattle has been as much as 2.5 days in the past few months, almost four times the average turnaround time, Ashiq said. threatened to become.”
The Port of Tacoma, which makes up the other half of the Northwest Seaport, faces a similar backlog. Nine ships came in by sea, and five ships are due to arrive in the next four days. Two ships remain moored, one of which, the YM Totality, has been moored since June 8. The Port of Tacoma container terminal continues to operate, but at 50% utilization.
“We’re concerned that ships and ocean carriers will be piling up across ports,” Brashier said. “We’ve had customers requesting bookings to the East Coast and the Gulf, not the West Coast. In the next four to six weeks, you’ll see Panama There’s a lot of cargo on the canal.”
Vessel backup continues in the Ports of Oakland, Long Beach and Los Angeles, with four vessels waiting 70 nautical miles from the Port of Oakland and nine vessels sailing to Oakland from the sea.
The Port of Long Beach currently has 19 container ships calling in from the sea, four of which are scheduled to arrive within the next two days. According to MarineTraffic, five more ships are scheduled to arrive simultaneously on June 19. There are currently 37 container ships en route to the Port of Los Angeles, seven of which will arrive near anchorage within the next 12 hours, and eight will arrive by sea within the next five days.
“We can see the impact of recent events on vessel schedules as there are still vessels that arrived 4 days ago still at berth, almost at the peak of maximum turnaround time,” Ashiq said. He cites a ship called Maersk Antares, which arrived eight days ago and has been at anchor almost twice as long as average.
For the first time in months, Captain J. Kipling (Kip) Louttit, executive director of the Southern California Marine Exchange, reported the planned delay. “The YM livery was scheduled to depart at 0400 today and has been delayed by 48 hours to 0400 Wednesday 14 June. We will keep you posted as we have more information,” he wrote in an email. Later Monday, he sent a further update, which included delays to three more ships. “We don’t have a definitive reason,” he said.