PORTS' STRIKE * USA & Canada: West Coast Ports ones

* California / USA - 2014 congestion cost US West Coast ports up to 150,000 TEUs

(Photo: The U.S. Airforwarders Association supplied this photo showing cargo ships anchored off LA-Long Beach on Saturday, Feb. 14) 
-- Port congestion on the U.S. West Coast is estimated to have caused the diversion of as much as 150,000 TEUs to East Coast ports during 2014, according to Drewry's Container Insight Weekly... Concerns have been expressed about the long-term damage to West Coast ports caused by the congestion, but Drewry said the current high eastbound spot rates to the East Coast would probably legislate against any permanent mass defection of cargo when normal operations returns to those Pacific terminals... According to the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index, the spot rate for 40-foot containers to the U.S. East Coast broke through the $5,000 barrier last week, more than double the rate to the West Coast... Hong Kong,China -JOC, by Greg Knowler -Feb 16, 2015


* DC / USA - ILWU, PMA talks resume with labor secretary-- U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez is scheduled to meet Tuesday with West Coast longshore union and management negotiators in an effort to end a bargaining standoff that’s causing increasing pain across supply chains... President Obama was sending Perez to join the nine-month-old negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association. Neutral mediators from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, an independent agency, have been involved since early January, when the ILWU and PMA invited them into into the talks... Perez has no power to impose a settlement, but industry officials hope his involvement will encourage a settlement that eases West Coast port delays that have reached crisis levels and threatened to produce a management lockout of dockworkers... Delays at West Coast ports, which handle more than 40 percent of U.S. containerized imports, are causing increased disruptions to company supply chains in retail, manufacturing and wholesaling industries, as well as to agricultural exporters... 


* BC / Canada - Truckers take Port Metro Vancouver licence battle to court 

-- Trucking companies that have found themselves frozen out of Port Metro Vancouver are hoping for judicial intervention... Twenty-three of 25 companies that have lost their port licence this month, have launched a federal lawsuit against Port Metro Vancouver and will have their case heard on Tuesday in Vancouver... Effective Feb. 1, 68 companies representing 1,450 truck tags were granted new licences... For those left out, the port acknowledged the change would difficult and offered a “generous transition program to eligible operators”... The program, according to the port, included some funding and administrative assistance with scrapping and auctioning trucks for drivers no longer able to work... (Photo Metro File/by Emily Jackson - Port Metro Vancouver as seen from Gastown) - Vancouver,BC,Canada -Metro, by Matt Kieltyka -February 16, 2015