California ports recovering from labour impasse

Los Angeles

SOUTHERN California seaports responsible for more than 40 per cent of US imports are whittling down a three-month backlog of cargo that built up during a labour dispute, the harbour chiefs said.

On Tuesday morning, 29 ships waited outside the neighbouring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, three fewer than a day earlier, according to the Maritime Exchange of Southern California. In late February, as many as 36 ships were stranded in the harbour shared by the two ports as fewer crane operators unloaded cargo during a months-long contract standoff between the dockworker union and port employers.

Eleven days after a tentative contract agreement, workers are making substantial if incremental progress in moving containers off ships and onto trucks and trains, Gene Seroka, the Los Angeles port executive dire…