Tangle of cargo slows waterfront recovery

By Evelyn Iritani, Jerry Hirsch and Nancy Cleeland
Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Billions of dollars worth of cargo that piled up at West Coast ports during the 10-day shutdown began moving out across supply chains yesterday — but not without glitches.

Meanwhile, representatives of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association employer group said they expected negotiations with a federal mediator to resume sometime next week.

As work at harbors from San Diego to Seattle resumed yesterday, shipping companies and freight forwarders were scrambling to find empty truck trailers, which were in short supply because seagoing containers were piled on them during the lockout.

Railroads were hard-pressed to handle the demand. Although most containers move by truck, the rails have become a critical piece of the containerized shipping supply chain.

With goods undeliverable during the lockout, rail carriers moved their equipment east, noted Steve Stallone, a spokesman for the ILWU.

Stallone said that in Oakland, Calif., alone, there are 36 ships in port — each with hundreds of rail containers aboard. But railroad officials are accepting only 180 containers a day, he said.

Union Pacific Railroad, one of the nation's leading carriers, brought about 90 locomotives to Southern California in anticipation of Wednesday's opening and expects to operate at least 30 percent more trains from the West Coast than normal in the coming days, according to Mike Furtney, a railroad spokesman.

"The best thing we can do is tell everybody to stay calm and wait for the situation to catch up," he said.

The West Coast's 29 ports opened Wednesday night after a federal judge granted President Bush's request for a temporary injunction under the rarely used Taft-Hartley Act, launching an 80-day cooling-off period for both sides.

The Maritime Association, representing shipping lines and terminal operators, locked out the ILWU Sept. 29, saying the union was engaging in work slowdowns to protest stalled contract talks.

Although containers were moving, port and shipping executives warned that the backlog of tennis shoes, computer parts, Halloween decorations and scores of other goods was so huge that it would take weeks before the trans-Pacific supply chain was back to normal.

"It's not unreasonable to expect that we're going to feel the impact of this work stoppage for at least another six weeks," said Robert Kleist, an adviser to Taiwan-based Evergreen Shipping Line.