Feed items
Source: AFL-CIO
Source: NY Times
Source: Minnesota Post
Source: Huffington Post
Maersk Line (MAERSKB), the world’s biggest container shipper, said last year that punctuality was poised to replace pricing as the industry’s key battleground. Less than 12 months on, delivery delays are worsening.
Only 63.7 percent of boxes were on time in the first 20 weeks, versus 65.9 percent a year earlier, according to INTTRA, a U.S. e-commerce platform which handles 525,000 shipments a week. That means 2012 may fall short of 2011’s 66.5 percent on- time delivery rate and the 68.8 percent level achieved in 2010.
More at Business Week
Aegon
The main speaker [was] Niek Stam of the FNV Bondgenoten trade union, and chair of the SBPVH advocacy foundation fighting for the return of pension money, totalling £715 million, which the protesters say has been taken from the intended beneficiaries.
[Stam was] supported by members of the RMT and Unite trade unions, and Frank Leys, secretary of the dockers’ section of the ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation). The tournament sponsor, insurance giant AEGON, is the target of a joint campaign by the employers and employees of the seaports community in the Netherlands.
From the Handy Shipping Guide
The United States reiterated its willingness to finance rebel groups seeking to destabilize some countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), a mechanism of political, economic and social integration created in 2004.
According to Mark Feierstein, Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington gives priority to support opposition forces that “are fighting for human rights and democracy in those nations.”
He confirmed that the White House has a close relationship and provides funds for opposition groups based in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua (member countries of ALBA), without specifying figures, several media reported.
Feierstein statements reveal allegations of progressive governments and institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean on the subversive nature of USAID programs in the region.
That agency, sometimes presented as an independent civil organization, served from 1961 in line with a strategy to counteract the U.S. aggressive image.
From Inside Costa Rica
Excerpts from the Portland Business Journal:
Activity at the Port of Portland’s Terminal 6 is expected to be minimal until an ongoing labor dispute is resolved.
A dispute over which union should have the right to staff two jobs plugging, unplugging and monitoring refrigerated containers on Friday wound up in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, who ordered the parties to return Monday for negotiations under the guidance of former Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
ICTSI put out a notice to its customers Sunday announcing a “restricted gate” Monday, meaning it will only allow pick-ups of import containers or drop-offs of empty containers. With ocean carriers bypassing Portland, the terminal couldn’t accept cargo for export.
More in the Portland Business Journal
From the Oregonian:
Longshoremen worked at slightly increased speed Sunday afternoon to send Portland’s last container ship in a while on its way, a Port of Portland spokesman said.
Josh Thomas said workers at Terminal 6 still faced a shortage of equipment for loading and unloading the Hanjin Madrid, a 51,000-ton ship delivering containers of cargo from Asia.
The ship was expected to depart Portland later Sunday, leaving the city without substantial international container service. Managers of Hanjin and Hapag-Lloyd steamship lines say their vessels won’t call on Portland again until a bitter labor dispute is resolved.
Read more at the Oregonian
Source: NYTimes
Please log in to view content
To view the content on this page, please log in to your account.
