11/2/2015

Here is where we are all at with the West Coast issue

Peter Friedman, Of Counsel to Lindsay Hart, LLP, predicted a projected imminent lockout of the West Coast terminals due to an on-going conflict between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) earlier last week.

On 8 Feb, Friday, PMA announced that its member terminal would indeed be halting all its vessel loading and unloading operations during the weekend. However, yard, rail and gate operations continued operating at terminals at the terminal operator’s discretion.

Good News

The ports have been operating again, since yesterday, Monday

Impact

Exporters and importers are greatly affected due to increased damages, losses, missed delivery deadlines,rejected cargo and lay-offs. As a result, the following may be expected:

Impact to exporters

Permanent loss of foreign customers who are looking to food, farm and fiber sources in other countries.

Impact to importers 

• Accelerating plans to permanently revise supply chain
• Reducing dependence on US West Coast ports
• Increasing shipments via Canadian and all-water (Panama and Suez) to the East/Gulf Coast port

Action Taken

Several congressional hearings and briefings to be held this week. However, there is no word yet from the White House amidst a massive multi-industry letter calling on the President to act.

Exchange of Questions with the White House

The Deputy Principal Press Secretary Eric Schultz speaks on the issue with the courtesy of Press Gaggle.

Question

First of all, when looking at the West Coast ports, there’s a potential of a shutdown of those ports in the next seven to five days. And we’re interested in knowing if the White House would be willing to do anything along the lines of what Bush did and employ Taft-Hartley to force those negotiations to go forward and for the workers to go back to work.

Mr. Schultz

Yes, Annie, I appreciate the question. And I can assure you that officials at the White House and across the relative agencies are closely monitoring the situation. Right now, our belief is that both sides should be resolving this at the negotiating table.

Question

Is Taft-Hartley something that’s off the table for you, or is it something that you’d consider?

Mr. Schultz

I think it’s just a premature question, because we believe both sides ought to resolve this at the negotiating table.

Question

Do you have any sense that they’re about to come to some sort of resolution? I mean, you’re talking about $2 billion a day in loss.

Mr. Schultz

We believe this ought to be resolved at the negotiating table.

 

Please refer to your assigned CS Representative if you have any questions.

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