my car is on it's way from san diego and now this!
wouldn't have made it for the long weekend any ways

aloha

steve

 

Good News: If your car is on the water already it shouldn't be affected by the HT&B strike. As far as I know the strike is between YB & HT&B only which is for interisland service. Your car should be coming via Matson or Sealand, completely different situation.

Bad News: If your car is not already on the water, it could be delayed as there are a shortage of longshoremen crews in the LA & Longbeach ports. A lot of ships waiting to be unloaded and reloaded.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

 

looks like matson is still open
my car was held up at port in long beach
salesmanager called port rep and told him i was pissed
should have been put on a boat yesterday, sunday at the latest

aloha

steve

 

Unfortunately not much you or anyone can do right now. I wish you the best of luck on getting the G here.

Some related information for you:


Boxes piling up on West Coast
Updated 11:32 a.m. ET, Wed Jun 30, 2004
By Bill Mongelluzzo
The JOURNAL of COMMERCE ONLINE
LOS ANGELES -- Containers are piling up as terminals at Los Angeles-Long Beach (schedules) continue to grapple with a shortage of longshore crews that's likely to escalate over the July 4 holiday.

"The problem hasn't gotten any worse, but at the weekend it will escalate," James McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, said late Tuesday.

Containers are beginning to stack up at the 14 marine terminals at the nation's largest port complex, and ships are waiting up to 24 hours to be worked.

SSA Marine, which operates several terminals in LA-Long Beach, brought vessels into berth Tuesday morning but was unable to get labor assigned to work the ships until Wednesday morning, said Chief Operating Officer Ed DeNike.

The labor problem is expected to worsen over the Independence Day weekend and into July 5, a traditional day off for longshoremen commemorating the founding of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Terminal operators said they have been shorted work gangs on and off since the weekend of June 19-20, and have yet to recover.

McKenna met Tuesday with terminal operators in Southern California and will meet Wednesday with international and local union officials to devise an interim plan until the PMA and ILWU can register and train more part-time, or casual, workers.

The shortage of longshore labor was created by unexpectedly strong container volumes this spring and the failure of employers to move quickly enough to expand the rolls of casuals. The PMA and ILWU last opened the rolls in 1998. Those casuals have since become registered longshoremen, but the vacancies they left at the hiring hall for casuals have not been filled.

Employers in Los Angeles must go to the hiring hall each day to fill hundreds of jobs that are not taken by registered longshoremen.

Employers report that their need for casuals has been greater than usual the past few weeks because of strong cargo volumes and also because registered longshoremen have been working an average of four shifts per week.

In the past, it was not unusual for registered longshoremen to work five regular shifts per week and to "double back" several nights a week in order to receive overtime pay for working a second shift. Employers this year have been attempting to pull back some of the side agreements under which they allowed longshoremen to work four hours on the job and then take off the remaining four hours while still getting paid for eight hours. Those longshoremen often returned to work a second shift.

The PMA and ILWU are negotiating to open up the casual rolls, which would create a pool of thousands of new workers. That would provide a relatively quick fix to the problem because the shortages that terminals face involve basic jobs that do not require a great deal of experience. New hires could be trained for those jobs in less than a month.




So. Calif. ports could face strike by office workers
Updated 5:31 p.m. ET, Wed Jun 30, 2004
By Bill Mongelluzzo
The JOURNAL of COMMERCE ONLINE
LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex (schedules), already burdened with a longshore labor shortage and intermodal rail congestion, faces the possibility of a job action by clerical workers in the offices of steamship lines and terminal operators.

The contract for the Office Clerical Unit of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 in Southern California expires at midnight Wednesday. Negotiators are reportedly far apart on the key issues of health care benefits and wages.

Although the office clerical workers are part of the ILWU, they are not covered by the new coastwide longshore contract negotiated in late 2002. The Local 63 Office Clerical Unit also has individual contracts with about a dozen steamship lines and terminal operators, each slightly different.

Some companies have as few as 20 office workers covered by the ILWU contract, while the larger carriers have 60 or more. The union members include office assistants and other employees who work for shipping lines and terminal operators. They are not cargo handlers.

Negotiators for the individual employers and ILWU Local 63 clerical division could not be reached for comment, so it is uncertain if any job action is contemplated if they are unable to reach a settlement by midnight.

The contract covers only office clerical workers in Southern California.
ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone could not comment on the negotiations, but when asked if dockworkers would honor any picket lines that might be set up by the office clerical workers, he said they certainly would.

"You never cross a picket line," Stallone said. If that scenario develops, the dockworkers would only return to work if ordered to do so by an arbitrator, he said.