LOS ANGELES — As a federal judge ordered the continuation of an 80-day “cooling off” period in a contentious labor dispute at the docks, the stevedores and the shipping companies today blamed each other for the backlog of containers piling up at West Coast ports, the Washington Post reported.
The movement of goods through the ports was still much slower than usual. Thousands of containers were being dumped onto the docks, without enough trucks and railroad cars to haul them away.
Sony PlayStations destined for Oakland, for example, were being unloaded in Long Beach, Calif. California avocados, which were to be exported, were being rerouted to U.S. markets, while rapidly ripening bananas arriving weeks late from Ecuador were being sent to food banks instead of grocery stores because their expiration dates had arrived.
The 29 ports along the Pacific, responsible for the annual movement of $300 billion in goods, were closed for 11 days because of a labor contract impasse between the dockworkers’ union and their employers.
President Bush intervened last week, invoking the powers of the Taft-Hartley Act, which gives him the power to seek a court order demanding that the parties return to work.
Today in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge William H. Alsup granted the Bush administration’s request for a permanent injunction that will keep the West Coast ports open and operating for another 72 days, while the dockworkers’ union and the shippers negotiate a new contract with the help of a federal mediator.
But the effects of the port closures, which may have cost the U.S. economy $1 billion a day, are still being felt.
“It’s going to take a long time to dig ourselves out. It’s like a snowstorm and we’re going to have to dig ourselves out,” Robin Lanier, executive director of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition, which represents retailers, consumer electronics companies and other businesses that move goods through the ports.
“The two sides are slinging mud,” Lanier said, “and we are just ducking our heads.”
Dave Malacrida, a spokesman for MGA Entertainment, a toy manufacturer based in Los Angeles, told a typical tale. He said his company was awaiting 235 containers stranded on ships during the lockout at the ports. Since last week, when Bush forced the ports to reopen, the toymaker has received only 42 of the shipping containers and it does not expect to catch up until December.
“Things are moving slowly,” Malacrida said. “But at least they’re moving.”
The shippers and the dockworkers say it could take two to three months to clear the backlog — and that is only if the work speeds up.
Truckers have reported delays getting into and out of the terminals, but the railroads, which haul almost all marine containers headed for the industrial Midwest and the Northeast, said they have had no problems.
“We’re running more trains than we usually do, but so far we got plenty of cars and locomotives, and the crews are doing okay,” said Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley. “There’s no strain on the [railroad] system.”
The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the shipping companies, said containers were moving through the ports about 20 percent more slowly than usual.
“There appears to be evidence of a slowdown,” said PMA spokesman Jason Greenwald, meaning that workers were intentionally malingering.
PMA President Joseph N. Miniace said he was closely monitoring the situation, and that the association was considering taking its evidence of a slowdown to the Department of Justice, whose attorneys could then seek penalties and contempt charges in court.
For its part, the union says its 10,500 members are working as fast as possible.
“We’re having infrastructure meltdown and a logistical nightmare of outrageous proportions,” said Steve Stallone, spokesman for International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Stallone said dockworkers were encountering a snarl of truck and train traffic.
“There are thousands of containers stacking up and we can’t get them out, and none of this you can blame on the union,” said Stallone. “But instead of trying to resolve these issues we have these supervisor nerds running around docks, trying to figure out a way to blame the union for this. Their concern is solely to attack the union, claiming these are slowdowns and getting our members cited for contempt of court.”
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the local chapter of the union charged that the shipping companies were intentionally understaffing the docks to create a slowdown.
The shippers are “systematically crippling productivity at the docks and blocking the movement of goods to the American people,” said Ramon Ponce de Leon Jr., president of ILWU Local 13 in Los Angeles. His union planned to file complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.
And so the charges and countercharges continued.
Federal mediator Peter Hurtgen is scheduled to meet with union leadership this week and then tour port facilities over the weekend before meeting with the shippers. By the middle of next week, both sides could return to the bargaining table. At issue is how to introduce computerized tracking and technology to the ports without losing union jobs.