Almost every container ship at the biggest import gateway in the US is seeing delayed departures or is waiting for a berth, as labor-related disruptions continue on the West Coast.
“Basically every container vessel is having their schedule pushed back by about a day or two,” Richard Palmer of the Marine Exchange of Southern California said in an emailed operations update. He said the main reason he’s seen is a lack of “lashers,” or longshoremen who secure containers aboard ships.
Palmer said agents for 10 of the vessels attributed the delays to a shortage of labor, and that some agencies didn’t want to comment on the labor situation or didn’t specify a reason for the delay.
US West Coast ports are enduring the longest labor-related disruptions since 2015 as talks between port employers and dockworkers close in on one year of negotiations on a new contract.
Labor shortages that started last week caused some terminals on the West Coast to close. Since then there have been intermittent disruptions at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are together the US’s largest hub for imports that are shipped in containers.
The previous labor contract covering 29 ports from California to Washington State expired July 1. The International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union, representing 22,000 dockworkers, and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents ocean carriers and terminal operators, have been negotiating since May 2022.
The ILWU declined to comment on the delays.
