News broke on Friday, February 20, 2015, that a tentative contract agreement had been reached by the PMA and ILWU! Please see the full statement from the PMA available here. The overwhelming response is relief that the West Coast labor dispute may finally be coming to an end, though the congestion issue is still far from over.
However, despite the announcement of a tentative agreement, we have received reports that ILWU workers at the Port of Oakland walked off the job on Sunday, February 22.
Despite the fact that the Secretary of Labor, Thomas Perez, has stepped in as mediator for the on-going contract negotiations, troublesome news continues to flow out of the West Coast, specifically regarding the Port of Oakland. The AgTC reports: the PMA has advised that ILWU Local 10 has announced they will now hold their regular Stop Work Meeting on the first shift of Thursday, February 19th, instead of the usual second shift.
We have recently received word that the longshoremen’s unions at the Port of Valencia in Spain have planned for new work stoppages in the months of March and April.
As mentioned yesterday, costs are continuing to pile on for importers and exporters due to the West Coast situation. WSSA, along with other parties, is advising the FMC as to practices that are not in compliance with FMC regulations. Please see the links below to examples of new surcharges and vessel schedules omitting West Coast ports. We will continue to keep you posted on any new developments.
https://images.magnetmail.net/images/clients/WSSA/attach/20.pdf
https://images.magnetmail.net/images/clients/WSSA/attach/ChangeofDestina...
North Europe:
Along with all the problems on the West Coast, we are also seeing congestion in Northern European ports. Bad weather, vessel delays, and the West Coast issues have created severe backlog for bookings for departures from North Europe to all USA ports.
