(The Associated Press circulated the following article on September 27.)
LOS ANGELES — Long delays at the nation’s largest port complex have forced some independent truck drivers to take their services elsewhere, leaving some trucking firms hard-pressed to find replacements and further aggravating a cargo logjam at the ports.
The situation is also costing some trucking companies business because some drivers refuse to take a job ferrying cargo containers from the busy ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
“I cannot get enough drivers,” said Patty Senecal, vice president of Transport Express Inc., a Rancho Dominguez-based harbor trucking and warehouse company. “I reduced my customer base. I can’t take on any more business. Every day I’m turning down new business.”
The drivers, who earn money based on how much they transport, not for the time worked, are routinely forced to wait at the port terminals for several hours, their trucks idling, to pick up or drop off cargo containers, trucking industry officials say.
“The delays are there, and they’re lengthy,” said Bob Curry, president of California Cartage Company Inc., a Long Beach-based trucking firm. “For every load that moves in and out of the harbor, my suspicion is that we have as much idle time as we have driving time.”
Trucking industry officials said they need relief now.
“The drivers are quitting, they can’t make a living,” said Stephanie Williams, senior vice president of the California Trucking Association, the industry’s trade group.
Williams estimates between 10 percent and 20 percent of the 12,000 truck operators who pull freight on the harbor have moved on to other trucking work over the past two months.
Williams said an informal survey conducted by 11 trucking companies suggested truckers are being forced to wait sometimes all day just to get one cargo container.
To retain drivers, Senecal has been asking her customers to pay between $55-$75 per hour to cover the time the drivers spend idled inside the ports.
“If it takes me seven hours to do a transaction that means I’m moving less freight,” Senecal said. “When the system is at a choke point and they’re sitting for hours and hours, the question is who should pay the price of this inefficiency?”
If the trucking companies are having trouble finding drivers, the situation doesn’t appear to be affecting the terminal operators themselves.
Jim McKenna, president and chief executive of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the ports’ marine terminal operators, said they have not reported having any trucker shortages.
As for the delays some drivers are experiencing, they come with the overall congestion of cargo traffic affecting the ports.
“You have volume, you have rail issues, the terminal constraints themselves during the peak times,” Jim McKenna said. “There’s a whole lot of moving parts to this thing. All of these add up to congestion.”
The backlog at the twin ports has been growing since early summer when a crush of cargo from the Far East began flowing in and is expected to last at least through the end of this year.
On Monday, between 75 and 80 cargo ships were docked at the ports, while some 30 others were stationed offshore waiting to enter, said Dick McKenna, deputy director of the Marine Exchange, which monitors ship movements at the ports.
The turnaround times for the ships, or how long it takes to unload them and send them on their way, was averaging four to five days, with some taking between eight and 10 days, Dick McKenna said.
Big retailers like Costco and Wal-Mart likely are compensating for any delays so that their stores will be well-stocked in advance of the holiday shopping season, he said.
But cargo congestion at the ports is likely to remain a fixture on the waterfront.
“There is no peak season anymore,” he said. “We cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Still, measures to help alleviate the port congestion are in the works, though progress has been slow-going.
Last month, the ports’ Marine terminal operators and the longshore workers’ union agreed to fast-track thousands of new hires. They also agreed to gradually begin extending operating hours in hopes shippers will move their freight in the evenings and on weekends and ease traffic at the ports. But the plan won’t be fully implemented until after the first quarter of next year.