Retailers Seek Port Labor Accord to Avoid Holiday Delays
The National Retail Federation urged workers and management of West Coast ports to reach a new labor agreement and avoid delaying holiday shipments.
“The failure to reach an agreement is now having a significant impact on port operations and contributing to port congestion in significant and damaging ways,” the federation said yesterday in a letter. “We are deeply troubled by the fact that no apparent progress has been made in the negotiations since August.”
West Coast ports, led by facilities in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, are the crucial entry points for merchandise from Asia. Retailers want assurances there will be no labor disruption through November, when most shipments are complete for their busiest season at year-end, according to the letter, sent to Robert McEllrath, president of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, and James McKenna, chairman and chief executive officer of the Pacific Maritime Association, representing employers.
A six-year pact covering ports from San Diego to Bellingham, Washington, expired on July 1. Talks resumed in August to avoid a repeat of a 2002 lockout that lasted 10 days and cost the economy about $1 billion a day.
Uncertainty related to the talks and expired contract has forced retailers to institute contingency plans to make sure they have merchandise for the holidays. The group called on the parties to extend the expired contract through November.
“The current congestion at West Coast ports has eviscerated those preparations in many cases which may cause critical merchandise to miss target on-sale dates,” according to the letter. “Finalizing a new labor contract is an absolutely critical component to working through the backlog of shipping containers now piling up at West Coast ports.”
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach account for about 40% of the cargo shipped to the U.S., with a combined 14.6 million containers arriving last year, said Rachel Campbell, a spokeswoman for the port of Los Angeles. Holiday shipments peak in September, she said.
Concerns about delays of holiday shipments are overblown, Jock O’Connell, an international trade adviser with Beacon Economics, said in an e-mail.
“No one is expecting that a strike or lockout of West Coast seaports will keep Santa from making his appointed rounds this year,” he said.
