LOS ANGELES — Long Beach Trucker Travis Steeres may end up driving back to Canada empty-handed if the bananas he’s waiting for spoil before longshoremen return to work at the Port of Long Beach, the Orange County Register reported.
The labor dispute that kept 10,500 West Coast dockworkers from going to work Tuesday left Steeres and 19 other truckers waiting for the Chiquita fruit to be unloaded from a ship at Pier D.
“I really want to see them go back to work. I want to go back to work,” said Steeres, who drove more than 1,300 miles to pick up fruit for The Grocery People, a food distributor in Edmonton, Alberta.
The shutdown has stranded truckers, kept longshoremen from going to work and pummeled companies that rely on the port for their business. At the same time, it has boosted business for air shippers such as BAX Global of Irvine and created extra work for the security guards who are charged with keeping workers from entering the facility.
Longshoremen showed up at the port anyway, carrying signs with slogans such as “Fight Terrorism, Not American Workers.”
Protesting port workers snacked on sausages, carne asada and hot dogs that they grilled as security guards looked on from behind the fence. The Port Petroleum truck stop offered truckers free hot dogs and coffee.
“We’re just trying to ease some of the pain,” said Pat Gorman, truck-stop manager.
Altogether, the labor dispute is costing the region’s economy about $300 million a day, said Jack Kyser, chief economist at Los Angeles Economic Development Co.
“We’re gnawing on our fingernails,” Kyser said.
Railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which typically ships 4,000 to 7,000 containers a day in and out of West Coast ports, stopped accepting shipments for international ports at noon Sunday, said railroad spokeswoman Lena Kent. The lost sales are one of several factors that will cause the company to miss this quarter’s earnings forecast, the company said Tuesday.
Yellow Corp., the largest U.S. trucker, has seen its West Coast business drop 10 percent to 15 percent because of the dispute, said Chief Executive William Zollars.
The disruption has heightened business for BAX and other airfreight carriers, which are recovering from a steep drop in sales following last year’s Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“This definitely means more business for us,” said Bob Jenkins, BAX’s vice president for global sales. “We’ve already taken steps to increase capacity out of Asia.”
Apparel manufacturers, toy makers and other companies that rely on imports for holiday-season sales began making plans to ship goods by air instead of sea back in June, when it looked like the two sides might not reach an agreement, Jenkins said.
Over the past two days, United Airlines has seen a small increase in its cargo business from Asia to the United States, said company spokesman Joe Hopkins.
“The airlines have had a tough year, so they’ve been pretty quick to take advantage of the situation,” Jenkins said.
Many Asian automakers are based in Southern California and are already shipping some parts by air because they generally have only five days of inventory on hand.
“The cost of shutting down an auto line is extremely high,” Jenkins said.