Dock worker strike??

[kayssupply]

Let's see if this topic will be less heated. Does anyone have any information on the dock workers strike? My importer just told me the tractor I had expected to pick up in two weeks will probably not be available until the first of the year.

That SUCKS.

 

[jimstractors]

My supplier has a container or two that was supposed to be here the week the strike started. Far as we know, still sitting out on the water with no ETA.

 

[JeffRey30747]

The company I work for has three 20' containers of gloves tied up somewhere on a ship or on the dock. Our freight forwarder has given us a best guess of sometime around the end of the month for their arrival. The latest info I was given is that many of the transPacific carriers won't even accept bookings for future voyages as of yet and some are considering declaring force majeure as an attempt to get out of existing contracts.
I won't go into my anti-union tirade in the interest of keeping this topic less heated./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

This act of brilliant foresight by the west coast dockworkers has mainly rerouted containers headed for the west coast to Encinata Mexico for offload. Mexicans are more than willing to accomodate extra containers, and are loading them on railcars as fast as they can for US delivery.
Evidently the "leaders" of the union didn't bother to read the history of railroads, because if they had, they would have realized their claim is a lost cause. No shipping company is going to pay a man $80k+ a year to scan barcodes when the reader can be mounted on a bracket for under $1000-. Container ships aren't going to lay at anchor waiting for these fools either.

 

[professor]

I have a friend with five containers sitting at the dock. The containers contain Yanmars, Fords, and Komatsu dozers. His shipping company tells him that since they are unloading ships on a priority basis it will probably be after the first of the year. He has 3 full time workers that this may affect. Seems that small grey tractor dealers are low priority.

 

[DavesTractor]

I have two containers of Yanmars sitting on the docks in Oakland, CA. They came in via Cosco (Victoria Bridge) on 9-23, and cleared customs the day of the work slowdown, right before the lockout. Of course they could not be moved during the lockout. My customs broker says I will have them this week. I hope she is right as these containers are needed to feed my family and employees for the next couple of months. Seems like high priority to me....

 

[hosejockey2002]

This labor dispute is actually a lockout, not a strike. President Bush enacted the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, I believe, which enables the president to halt a labor dispute if it threatens the security of the nation. I believe Bush ordered the workers back for 10 days but the union and management agreed to an 80 day cooling off period to work on an agreement. From what I've read the sticking point is not wages, rather it's the use of new technology on the docks which threatens the job security of the longshoremen. It is not only affecting imports to this country but also exports like produce and grain. News reports say that it will take 3-4 weeks for longshoremen to catch up on the backlog of ships waiting to be unloaded at West Coast ports. Hopefully this will not have a negative effect on grey market dealers. Now that I think of it, since most new compacts are built overseas or at least use imported components, a prolonged labor dispute at West Coast ports could really turn the compact tractor world in the U.S. on its collective ear. Let's all hope it gets resolved soon.

 

[EFC]

The backlog is around 8 weeks currently. We have over a dozen containers that won’t arrive now till January. /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif One ship even turned around and went back and offloaded.

 

[normde2001]

Heaven forbid they should even consider replacing some of those $40 an hour longshoremen with technology. What is this world coming to?

 

[Anonymous Poster]

High priced US labor is being replaced by lower priced foreign labor. The longshoreman need to realize that foreign ports (read Mexico and Canada) with lower priced labor, can accept cargo and truck or transfer it by rail. US labor is protecting itself out of the market. Soon there will be one longshoreman making 2 million a year and US ports will accept no cargo. Labor needs to help the US be more competetive rather than less.