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From Reuters:
When Charles Spencer became a crane operator at the Jacksonville Port Authority in Florida in 1971, it took at least a day for 200 dockworkers to unload 160-pound sacks of coffee from a cargo ship.
Now the same job takes 20 dockworkers, assisted by massive robots programmed to lift and stack containers, an hour.
One thing hasn’t changed, however: American dockworkers are among the highest-paid blue-collar workers in the country. Spencer says he made about $32,000 a year when he started; today, the average dockworker makes more than $115,000 a year.
Now, shipping companies are pushing hard to control costs, including the cost of labor – and workers are pushing back. It all comes down to who gets the rewards from the investment the port operators have put into increasingly automated equipment: the companies and their shareholders or the unionized dockworkers.
Read the rest at Reuters
Total imports and exports handled by longshore workers at the Port of Los Angeles fell slightly in 2012 compared with the previous year, according to data provided by the port.
The drop punctuated a year in which the country was recovering from the recession and during which the ports faced their largest strike in a decade.
The nation’s busiest port processed roughly 6.14 million loaded 20-foot container equivalents – a metric used worldwide by the maritime industry – during 2012. In 2011, the port handled 6.18 loaded containers for import and export.
More in the Daily Breeze
Port of Astoria Commissioner Bill Hunsinger rose from his seat at Tuesday night’s Commission meeting, approached the podium during public comment and presented himself as a member of the public wanting to bring the agency’s attention to a possible business opportunity.
He talked about Ocean Cold, a 95,000-square-foot cold storage and processing facility in Westport, Wash., and how Astoria could profit from a similar facility, whether via the Port, Clatsop County or another agency that takes the lead.
“The seafood industry isn’t the only one that wants this cold storage,” said Hunsinger. “In Westport, they did 1 million pounds of product last year.”
More at Oregon Public Broadcasting
Failure of the U.S. Congress to pass a farm bill during the last legislative session and apparent apathy from leaders in the House of Representatives to take up the issue anytime soon creates an air of uncertainty and skepticism from farmers and the agricultural industry, according to an agriculture economics professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Darren Hudson, professor and Combest Chair of Agricultural Competitiveness, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, says extending the current farm bill for nine months delays action, eliminates the possibility of a sudden and steep rise in milk prices but makes no significant changes in farm programs.
As Congress turns its attention to debt ceiling and debt reduction issues, farm programs may offer a tempting target. “Agriculture is getting washed up into much bigger debates and that puts agriculture at a severe disadvantage,” Hudson said.
More in the Southwest Farm Press
Excerpted from a Journal of Commerce Analysis:
East Coast ports maintained their lead in containerized exports in the first nine months of 2012 and increased their share of import and export markets. And they did so despite shipper concerns at the end of September over a potential strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association and a related shift of some cargo to ports on the West Coast and Canada.
Total U.S. exports through September 2012 were up 1.3 percent year-over-year and 1.6 percent from the same period in pre-recession 2008. East Coast exports advanced 2.1 percent year-over-year and 0.5 percent from the same period in 2008. Gulf Coast exports were up 5.1 percent year-over-year and 14.3 percent ahead of the first three quarters of 2008. The West Coast lagged, with volume slipping 0.4 percent year-over-year and flat with 2008, but it held a 40.9 percent share of the export market.
More at the JOC (subscription requited)
Leo Robinson, ILWU Local 10 pensioner. Photo by David Bacon.
The following are excerpts from a tribute to ILWU Local 10 pensioner Leo Robinson by labor author and photographer David Bacon:
Leo Robinson was a Black leader of the longshore union in San Francisco. He died this week. For many of us, he was a lifelong companion, an example of what being an internationalist and a working class activist was all about.
He was a tremendous speaker. The best photograph I ever took of Leo was while he was talking in a union meeting about safety conditions on the docks. He had the full attention of every union member in Local 10′s cavernous waterfront union hall. Leo was an agitator, but people listened to him because what he said made sense to them. He knew how to speak their language.
Leo’s political commitment’s extended beyond South Africa. He worked for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He protested police brutality in the Oakland where he lived for many years. He defended the union he loved, and unions and workers everywhere.
Most important, Leo Robinson believed that immediate changes were important because they are steps to a more just...
From Tuesday’s Journal of Commerce:
The International Longshoremen’s Association and United States Maritime Alliance held a full day of contract negotiations Tuesday and planned to continue their federally mediated bargaining Wednesday.
No details were available on the substance of the negotiations, which are being overseen by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
A 20-member ILA committee and a group representing USMX are scheduled to meet through Thursday in Galloway, N.J. , as they try to work out a deal before their latest extension expires Feb. 6.
More at the JOC (subscription required)
Chassis transportation company Direct ChassisLink has named Ron Joseph senior vice president of operations.
Before joining the company, Joseph oversaw operations of TransX USA, an operating unit of The TransX Group of Companies, where he was responsible for managing and growing business. Prior to that, he worked for FedEx Ground as senior vice president of line-haul, safety and maintenance.
More at the Journal of Commerce
A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, owner of the world’s largest container line, said the industry needs to raise prices by as much as $500 a box on Asia to Europe trips to restore the trade route to profit.
“Just like everyone else on Asia-Europe, we don’t make money at the current rates,” Lars Mikael Jensen, head of Copenhagen-based Maersk Line’s Asia/Europe network, said by phone. “Rates will need to go up by $300 to $500 per container to make the industry profitable.”
More at gCaptain
[ENGLISH SUMMARY: Mexico's Secretary of Communications and Transportation has announced the official cancellation of plans to build a mega-port at Punta Colonet south of the U.S.-Mexican border to compete with California ports. The cancellation announcement followed studies showing there was not significant private investment available, as conditions have changed since the project was conceptualized in 2008.]
La SCT canceló la construcción, ya que las condiciones actuales del mercado son distintas a las que existían en 2008, cuando se lanzó la licitación.
La construcción de la terminal portuaria comercial en Baja California de uso público y una línea ferroviaria para conectarla a la frontera con Estados Unidos, acciones que comprendían el proyecto de transporte multimodal Punta Colonet, fue cancelado de manera oficial por la Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT).
Inicialmente, el proyecto buscaba captar una parte de la carga que ya no podía pasar por puertos como los de Los Ángeles o San Francisco debido a la saturación, y transportarla por ferrocarril hacia la frontera con Estados Unidos, el cual habría estado ubicado en el municipio de Ensenada....
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