Shipping Companies To Partially Shut Down Los Angeles, Long Beach Ports For The Weekend
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The Los Angeles and Long Beach ports will partially shut down this weekend to suspend vessel loading and unloading activities at West Coast ports.
The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents port employers, issued the order Friday to halt the loading and unloading of ships at local ports and 27 others up and down the West Coast.
Terminal operators can still move containers out of their yards, citing low productivity at the ports due to an ongoing labor dispute.
"We're getting to a point, a braking point where the system is really sort of collapsing under its own weight. We're experiencing significant delays and backlogs and we've reached a point where we're near the brink," Steve Getzug, a spokesperson for PMA, said.
RELATED: LA, Long Beach Mayors Urge Dockworkers, Employers To Reach Labor Agreement
Operations are scheduled to resume Monday.
Craig Merrilees, spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents dockworkers, called the order "crazy and irresponsible."
"Customers need their containers and have already suffered from industry caused delays and congestion," Merrilees said.
Instead of stopping work at the ports, "the focus needs to be on resolving the contract and reaching an agreement as soon as possible," he said.
PMA has accused the union of employing an illegal slowdown tactic that has cut productivity by as much as 50 percent. ILWU officials deny the claim, saying they are only allowing certified crane operators to come to work.
Caught in the middle are businesses and consumers, according to the National Retail Association, which accuses both sides of holding the supply chain community hostage while they seem more interested in attacking one another than settling the dispute and hammering out a contract.
"We keep hearing rumors and rhetoric and increased, you know, back and forth, between the parties," Jonathan Gold of the National Retail Association, said. "But again, they need to stay at the table, get a deal done."
Port management and dockworkers have been engaged in federal mediation over a contract that expired in July.
PMA officials announced Wednesday they gave the union their best contract offer, which included raising wages 3 percent each year of the five-year contract and increasing pensions.
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