This is a drone's eye view of the Port of Los Angeles (top) and the Port of Long Beach (bottom). Today marks the first meeting to discuss a new labor contract for dockworkers on the West Coast, about two-thirds of whom work at either the LA or Long Beach ports. Backlog at the two ports is currently down to 35 ships from a high of 109 back in January, but that could all fall apart if talks fail to conclude by July 1 and dockworkers go on strike.
and somewhere in there is the Christmas gift I ordered...
😉
I see part of the problem in the first picture. The containers are off the ships and sitting in the yard, where, the port truck drivers are paid by the load only, even if it takes three or four days to work a container. As one might expect, a lot of those drivers are inexperienced with a lot of incentive to join a "real" trucker operation that pays by the hour, hence, according to my neighbor who works the port, a lot of equipment does not move like it should.
July 1 comes and Biden will probably use Taft-Hartley to end the strike. Might not, though. It's one tool Biden in particular would be loathe to use.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/13/fact-sheet-biden-administration-efforts-to-address-bottlenecks-at-ports-of-los-angeles-and-long-beach-moving-goods-from-ship-to-shelf/
I think they will get it settled OK. I sure hope so...
The problems are actually quite complex. A huge portion of them have to do with the fact that the steamship lines do NOT play nice with each other. Containers with specific steamship lines have to be mated to specific chassis controlled by specific companies. At the intermodal railroad terminal I work at, there are considerable issues concerning the various chassis pools and steamship lines. For instance, instead of a pool of 40 and 20 foot chassis that any box can go on, there are three pools handling five or six major lines. A Maersk box cannot be mated with a chassis that is not from a pool allotted to it. Thus, we have issues in which boxes will go to the ground and sit, even though there is capacity to move it. The railroads don't play nice either, charging massive storage fees if containers aren't moved off the terminal within a couple of days, regardless of whether chassis were available or not.
In addition, its more than just the ports that are negotiating contracts right now. The various Class 1 railroads, having instituted Precision Scheduled Railroading™ are attempting to lower the pay of all of their union employees by offering no increases on the upcoming contract. Should they succeed, it is likely that their will be massive walk offs and unofficial strikes, further snarling an already battered supply-chain. If you really wanna glimpse into the American supply chain, research PSR and its effects on the American railroad business.
Thanks Talphon, that's a nice explanation. Most people don't think about ports and transportation logistics. It's supposed to just work, but it's often a competitive mess inside.
One thing helping clear the West Coast ports is the bottleneck in Chinese production. There have been a lot of lock downs and shut downs. ATIS shows the Chinese harbors are full of ships presumably waiting for cargo. Have you tried ordering a Macbook lately? I did two months ago. Now they're saying July delivery. I doubt its a lot better for a Lenovo.