Shipping traffic at US west coast ports has largely returned to normal, officials said, after a protracted 10-month contract dispute ended with a new labour agreement in February.
Craig Merrilees, spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), said that incoming and outgoing traffic at the 29 west coast ports affected by the dispute-related slowdowns “seems pretty much back to normal”.
He said that traffic through the ports has been rebuilding ever since the new five-year labour contract was signed on 20 February by the ILWU and the port owners and operators group, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA).
Traffic at key west coast ports – the gateway for much of US trade with Pacific Rim nations – fell to low points in January and early February this year as the contract talks neared conclusion.
PMA officials accused longshoremen of orchestrating work slowdowns at the ports in an effort to influence contract talks. The ILWU in turn noted that operators shut down the ports for six days during the final 10 days of contract talks, contributing to lower traffic for the period.
Data on shipping container traffic provided by PMA shows, for example, that more than 460,000 containers moved through Long Beach Port in May last year when contract talks began.
But container traffic at Long Beach fell to just under 313,000 just before the February agreement was reached. As of March, according to the PMA data, more than 448,000 containers were moved through Long Beach.
At Los Angeles Port, container traffic in May last year was more than 543,000 units, then fell to little more than 326,000 in January this year before recovering to more than 635,500 units in March.
From a peak of 158,000 containers moved through the Port of Oakland in May last year, traffic fell to just under 92,000 units in February when the new contract was signed. Container traffic at that port in March was back up to nearly 165,000 units, according to PMA.
The protracted contract negotiations and related traffic delays plagued US chemicals and plastics producers and many other manufacturers and suppliers for months, triggering knock-on delays in truck and rail shipments throughout the US West.
Congressional testimony in February indicated that west coast port shutdowns cost the US economy $2.5bn per day. An 11-day shutdown of the 29 west coast ports in a 2002 contract dispute caused commercial losses off $15.6bn, according to congressional witnesses.
