Posts tagged dockworkers

    US can focus on clearing rail jams after labor deal reached, LA Port director says

    September 19, 2022 // About 28,000 containers were awaiting a train at the Port of Los Angeles Thursday, a figure that is about three times higher than where it should be, Los Angeles Port Executive Director Gene Seroka told reporters. Additionally, rail facilities in cities like Chicago, Kansas City and Dallas are facing jams, Seroka noted. “Rail has been challenged for months throughout the national freight network,” Seroka told reporters Thursday. “Since spring, we've seen spikes in volume as well as backlogs and bottlenecks.”

    Before the holiday season, workers at America’s busiest ports are fighting the robots

    September 13, 2022 // The need for some kind of change is evident. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are consistently rated the least efficient in the world. More modern ports in the Middle East and China, where 24/7 operations are the norm, get ships in and out much faster.

    Biden averts freight railroad strike – for now

    July 18, 2022 // The presidential board can only make nonbinding recommendations on the railroad contracts, but those will serve as the basis for a new round of negotiations that could yield a contract that has eluded the railroads since talks began more than two years ago. Even if those efforts fail, Congress would likely intervene to prevent a strike. Lawmakers could impose terms on the railroads and their 12 unions at that point or take other action to keep the trains moving. The National Carriers’ Conference Committee that represents Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern and other railroads said it believes the wage increases railroads are offering are fair based on other recent major labor agreements, but the unions say none of the offers so far do enough to offset inflation or reflect the current worker shortages. Plus, the railroads want workers to pay more of their health insurance costs, which the unions say would eat up most, if not all, of the proposed raises. Rob Benedict, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Brendan Branon, Dennis Pierce, Jeremy Ferguson,

    What West Coast ports’ labor negotiations mean for your packages

    May 27, 2022 // The employers’ right to automate their operations has become a prominent issue in the contract. The 2002 deal introduced new technologies such as scanners and character-recognition technology, while the 2008 pact explicitly authorized automation. Last year, Total Terminals International LLC announced its intention to fully automate its Long Beach operations, a project the ILWU strongly opposed. This would make it San Pedro Bay’s fourth terminal with some automation out of the port complex’s 14 hubs.