Truckers Raise Level of Activism Over Congestion at Major Ports

This story appears in the March 3 print edition of Transport Topics.

Frustration over congestion boiled over at three of the largest ports in North America last week, with a work stoppage at the Port of Vancouver and some truckers at the Port of New York and New Jersey began implementing detention surcharges.

Likewise, truckers met with officials at the Port of Virginia to voice complaints over increased congestion there.

The Port of New York and New Jersey is third largest, Vancouver is fifth and Virginia is seventh, according to the American Association of Port Authorities.

In Vancouver, about 1,400 nonunionized truckers staged a work stoppage Feb. 26.

“We’re open for business, but we are delayed as a result of the protest that happened,” a port spokesman said.

But Jon Ciobanu, Vancouver port manager for logistics firm Inchcape Shipping Services, told Transport Topics, “It’s possible that other truckers’ unions could sympathize with them, which would cause major disruptions at the port.”

At the Port of N.Y.-N.J.’s Newark terminal, truckers have been complaining about delays as long as seven hours. It is leading to “damaging consequences” to cargo flow, the Retail Industry Leaders Association wrote in a Feb. 19 letter to the port.

“It’s so bad that our major economic lifeline for the state of New Jersey is in jeopardy because we can’t seem to move containers out of the port,” said Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association.

One port drayage company owner said the delays had become so bad that he started charging customers an extra $175 per load.

“I have to do it because my drivers are very disenchanted with what’s going on down there,” said Evans Papantouros, owner of EP Transportation & Logistics in Toms River, N.J. “The wheels aren’t turning, diesel’s over four bucks a gallon and these guys can only do one turn a day. They’re just not making the money they should be making on a daily basis.”

Several other companies said they have implemented similar surcharges or are considering it.

At the Port of Virginia, similar frustrations are festering among drayage operators. They complain that record freight volume and a lack of needed infrastructure improvements are causing their freight turn times of normally an hour or two to reach up to five hours.

In response, the port has set up a task force to address the issue.

Danny Glover, president of GTL Transport in Suffolk, Va., said congestion has affected freight efficiency, slowing turn times to a snail’s pace and disrupting drivers’ hours-of-service schedules.

“2013 and 2014 have been the worst we’ve ever experienced,” said Glover, whose company has operated at the port for 36 years.

Truckers say the increase in containers passing through the port is largely to blame for the delays.

“We would want a one-hour turn time,” said Ed O’Callaghan, president of Century Express.

Indeed, 2013 was a record-setting year at the port, with 5.6% growth in 2013 and 9.8% growth in 2012.

But not all of the issues can be blamed on weather and capacity, officials said.

Some can be traced back to glitches in new software last summer, followed by shortages of workers despite a new labor agreement for longshoremen on the East and Gulf coasts.

As a result, not enough longshoremen and clerical workers were hired to handle the work at N.Y.-N.J., port officials said.

Despite a shortage of labor, “The key to this is to work longer hours to try to clear the backlog,” said Richard Larrabee, the port’s director of commerce. “If we don’t clear it, it takes longer for the next load to clear.”

“There’s stuff sitting on piers for two to 10 hours and truckers sitting in line for five, six, seven hours,” said Tom Heimgartner, president of Newark, N.J.-based drayage carrier Best Transportation, which operates a 100-truck fleet.

“With hours-of-service [rules], drivers might be able to pick up one load, but then it’s too late to deliver it,” Heimgartner told TT. “It’s not economically viable for the trucking companies.”

Joe DiGiulio, director of logistics for Ideal Transportation Co. in Peabody, Mass., said one of his drivers was stuck in line for almost eight hours last month.

“They open for an hour and close for three,” DiGiulio said.

Kelly Kolb, vice president of government affairs for RILA, wrote in her letter to port officials, “Retailers are concerned that further disruptions will take place resulting in lost sales, empty shelves and disappointed customers.”

While noting there have been “an unusual number of weather-related issues that have temporarily closed terminals and slowed operations,” RILA said, “the backlog of cargo has become unreasonable and should be considered an extremely serious matter to all those involved.”

The main cause of the port’s delays has been the severe winter weather, which has cut productivity roughly in half, said John Nardi, president of the New York Shipping Association, which represents employers at the port.

“The port has not been open for a full Monday-Friday week since Christmas, and Newark has had 63 inches of snow this year versus an annual average of 28 inches,” he said.

Some salt deliveries to terminals to alleviate icing were commandeered by the state due to an overall shortage, which was “especially detrimental to straddle-carrier operations,” Nardi added.