From SCDigest's On-Target e-Magazine
- Feb. 10, 2015 -
Global Supply Chain News: Someone is Lying at West Coast Ports with Regards to Union Productivity
PMA Says Work Slowdown is Clear, ILWU Says there is No Such Thing; Who Deserves the Pinocchios?
SCDigest Editorial Staff
Amid the fog that has surrounded the severe congestion that has plagued West Coast ports for months, leading to huge delays in getting containers out of the terminals and a huge backlog of ships waiting to unload, only one thing is clear: one side is lying.
The union agrees with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents West Coast ports, that productivity has taken a big hit. But while the PMA says a huge factor has been an intentional work slowdown by the dock workers, either through moving at a slow pace or not sending enough workers to do the job, the union say that's bogus, and that instead it is issues such as bad chassis management and the time it takes to unload megaships that are at the root of the problem.
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The PMA disclosed its last and final contract offer was for a 3% increase in wages for Longshore, while upping the pension pay a union worker will get a retirement to a whopping $88,000 per year. |
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The PMA doesn't dispute those factors are involved, but says the work slowdown has contributed strongly to the delays. The union says there is no work slowdown.
The PMA certainly tried to make a point over the weekend, when it created a temporary lock out of dock workers at 29 west coast ports, saying it simply wasn't worth paying the Longshoreman overtime rates on Saturday and Sunday for such little productivity.
The ports re-opened normally Monday, however, avoiding a full scale supply chain disaster- though unloaded ships are sitting out in the ocean at levels never seen before, as many as 40 by some counts - a huge number.
"We don't see the economic sense in paying time and a half, paying more for workers who are doing less, and really putting us on the edge," said PMA spokesman Steve Getzug.
The ILWU denies its members are working at the slow pace alleged by the PMA.
"Those problems have been created by mismanagement of the terminals," said Bobby Olvera Jr., president of ILWU Local 13, representing longshoremen. He said the Pacific Maritime Association is intentionally asking for only half the normal labor to move cargo and then publicly blaming the union for the slowdown. "We had over 1,000 members checked in to work last night," he said earlier this week, "and the employer ordered 200 jobs."
Tony Scioscia, a former PMA board member who now has a shipping consulting business, disagrees, telling CNBC that management asks for a full contingent of dockworkers, but the union is usually sending about 50% of the labor requested.
In mid-January, the PMA released statistics indicating that the union has reduced by about 67% the number of skilled equipment operators being dispatched each day over the past two months at LA- Long Beach, as shown in the graphic from the PMA below.
PMA Presents Data it Says Prove ILWU Engaged in Major Work Slowdown
Source: Pacific Maritime Association
(Global Supply Chain Article Continued Below)
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