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LA-Long
Beach braces for
July 4 labor shortage
Updated
9:25 a.m. ET, Tue Jun 29, 2004
By Bill Mongelluzzo
The JOURNAL of COMMERCE ONLINE
LOS ANGELES -- Terminal
operators at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are bracing for a
longshore labor shortage over the July 4 weekend that could set back
operations at the nation's largest container complex by three or four
days. The labor shortage comes amid intermodal rail delays and strike
threats by harbor truckers even as container volume has grown by 10
percent this year as the peak shipping season gets underway.
Independence Day is usually a difficult time for West Coast terminal
operators. Many veteran longshoremen take the July 4 holiday off, and
never work on July 5, commemorated by the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union as "Bloody Thursday," when striking longshoremen were
killed by San Francisco police in 1934, an event that led to the founding
of the union.
Employers this year
planned for five to six percent growth in container volume, but the growth
has been almost twice that level during through May. Volumes have been
especially heavy in Southern California. Los Angeles-Long Beach in May
reported container volumes that approached what the port complex handled
last October during the height of the 2003 peak shipping season. |
