AMERICAN. importers are reorganising supply chains to avoid trouble arising from contract talks between west coast waterfront employers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) this summer, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Some have moved holiday-season orders to get them shipped early, while others are diverting normally west coast landed cargo to east and Gulf coast ports.
'There are limited options available and that's why a lot of them still pray and hope they can get a lot of their product through LA-Long Beach,' said NFI Industries CEO Sidney Brown, who runs a New Jersey 3PL.
The ILWU and the employers' Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) will be seeking to replace an agreement that expires July 1. In past years, labour talks have taken months to resolve. During combative negotiations that ran from 2014 to 2015, slowdowns at the ports caused lengthy backups in ships off the Southern California coast.
'It does have our attention and we are considering the impact it would have on our supply chain,' said Hobby Lobby chief financial officer Jon Cargill.
This year's talks will take place as dozens of ships are already backed up in the Pacific because of Covid supply-chain congestion. Efforts to get around that bottleneck by routing cargo elsewhere have led to backlogs from Houston to Savannah and Charleston, SC.
David Arsenault, president of GSC Logistics, a third-party services company that specialises in moving cargo through northern California and the Pacific Northwest, said shippers agreed to contracts earlier than usual to ensure space on alternate routes.
Other gateways would be hard-pressed to process much of the cargo from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which together handle nearly 40 per cent of US.
Caraway Home kitchenware operations chief Mark Riskowitz, said he is considering diverting cargo from California to the Port of New York and New Jersey, and to Prince Rupert that has rail connections to Chicago.
Roel Dekkers, director of supply chain at an aftermarket automotive filtration supplier, Premium Guard, said he is considering shifting time-critical goods to east coast ports while continuing to send less time-sensitive shipments to the west coast.
Container volumes through east coast ports have been growing faster in recent years than those through the west coast, though it isn't clear how much of the gap is because congestion has slowed the handling of volumes at the California gateways and how much is because cargo has been diverted to other gateways.
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Some have moved holiday-season orders to get them shipped early, while others are diverting normally west coast landed cargo to east and Gulf coast ports.
'There are limited options available and that's why a lot of them still pray and hope they can get a lot of their product through LA-Long Beach,' said NFI Industries CEO Sidney Brown, who runs a New Jersey 3PL.
The ILWU and the employers' Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) will be seeking to replace an agreement that expires July 1. In past years, labour talks have taken months to resolve. During combative negotiations that ran from 2014 to 2015, slowdowns at the ports caused lengthy backups in ships off the Southern California coast.
'It does have our attention and we are considering the impact it would have on our supply chain,' said Hobby Lobby chief financial officer Jon Cargill.
This year's talks will take place as dozens of ships are already backed up in the Pacific because of Covid supply-chain congestion. Efforts to get around that bottleneck by routing cargo elsewhere have led to backlogs from Houston to Savannah and Charleston, SC.
David Arsenault, president of GSC Logistics, a third-party services company that specialises in moving cargo through northern California and the Pacific Northwest, said shippers agreed to contracts earlier than usual to ensure space on alternate routes.
Other gateways would be hard-pressed to process much of the cargo from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which together handle nearly 40 per cent of US.
Caraway Home kitchenware operations chief Mark Riskowitz, said he is considering diverting cargo from California to the Port of New York and New Jersey, and to Prince Rupert that has rail connections to Chicago.
Roel Dekkers, director of supply chain at an aftermarket automotive filtration supplier, Premium Guard, said he is considering shifting time-critical goods to east coast ports while continuing to send less time-sensitive shipments to the west coast.
Container volumes through east coast ports have been growing faster in recent years than those through the west coast, though it isn't clear how much of the gap is because congestion has slowed the handling of volumes at the California gateways and how much is because cargo has been diverted to other gateways.
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