LOS ANGELES: The shipping work has stopped due to dispute between terminal operators at the port of Los Angeles and long beach. The operators being strictly ordered to stop loading and unloading ships at night.
The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping companies operating West Coast port terminals, said their members will not be assigning any vessel gangs or crews to move cargo off of and onto ships at night, to focus on reducing an ever-expanding pile of cargo containers they contend is the result of an intentional work slowdown tactic by the dockworkers union.
Crane operators who would normally work with the vessel gangs will instead be moving containers out of the shipping yards and onto trucks, which will take the goods to their destination, PMA officials said.
“It’s designed to get containers that have been stranded moving,” PMA spokesman Steve Getzug said.
Daytime vessel gangs, and some night workers on the yard and at the gates, would not be affected by PMA’s order, he added.
PMA has been locked in contentious negotiations with the International Brotherhood of Long shore and Warehouse Union, Local 13, the representatives of which have denied initiating a work slowdown tactic.
The union is only allowing trained and certified crane operators to work at the terminals, according to Adan Ortega, a spokesman for the ILWU.
Ortega said terminal operators are not offering enough training for workers and have become “over-reliant on untrained and uncertified crane operators.”
Getzug dismissed the claim that only certified crane operators should be working on the yards, and contends the dockworkers union is covering for its oft-used negotiating tactic of slowing down work at the ports.
