West Coast labor dispute leaves Wichita companies out at sea

It may be 1,500 miles away, but a labor dispute on the West Coast is already touching numerous Kansas businesses and consumers.

Unionized dockworkers and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the companies operating more than two dozen ports along the West Coast, have conducted increasingly contentious contract negotiations over the past several months.

As negotiations grew more strained in the fall, the pace at which work was done on the docks grew slower and slower.

That led to increasingly serious bottlenecks at the ports.

The PMA said earlier this week that it would not pay the dockworkers — who normally work over the weekend and Presidents Day — the normal premium rates for overtime. It also announced its plans to shut down the ports Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday.

That sent ripples of distress through local and regional importers and exporters already anxious about the lengthening delays in getting merchandise to and from Asia.

“It’s costing me a fortune and screwing up my business and that of all retailers,” said Martin Park, owner of Mommy’s Helper, a Wichita-based seller of products for infants. “It’s a good thing they didn’t do this before Christmas.”

The products he has made in China and brought into the U.S. move in shipping containers, large steel boxes that fill giant container ships. The slowdown at the ports since the fall has meant more and more of those containers would sit for weeks before being loaded either onto trains coming east or onto ships headed west.

Because of the work slowdowns, the storage areas are filled, and it’s also taking longer and longer to load and unload ships.

Many ships hauling goods bob in the ocean off the West Coast days or weeks, waiting for a time slot to unload. Some of the ports are now no longer accepting ships.

As a result of the delays, Park said he is being charged by the owners of the containers about $1,000 more per container for their use. Ultimately, though, he said, the cost will be felt by everyone in the chain and, eventually, by the consumer.

“If it lasts much longer, there will be consumer shortages, which means prices will go up and things will be unavailable,” he said.

Karyn Page, president of Kansas Global Trade Services, a Wichita-based group that assists Kansas companies export and import, said about 28 percent of the Wichita metro economy depend on exports — one of the most export-dependent regions in the nation.

Much of that is aircraft and aircraft parts, but it’s also electrical machinery, farm equipment, electronics, processed food, grain and meat. And much of it is bound for China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and elsewhere through the West Coast ports.

“Whether we like it it not, we’re global,” she said.

She said it’s a little early to hear general screaming because companies have worked furiously to find other ports, on the East Coast or in Mexico, but the system is now full up, she said. She said she would welcome some kind of strong federal intervention to get the matter resolved and get the goods flowing.

“We’re talking tens or hundreds of millions if this goes on,” she said, of the local impact.

Jeanie Metzen, president of F.H. Kaysing, a customs brokerage firm in Wichita, said firms have seen this bottleneck at the ports grow increasingly worse. It’s now taking almost twice as long as normal to get a delivery.

This time, she said, is the worst she’s seen in 35 years. It’s worse than earlier stoppages because the volumes of trade, both importing and exporting, are so much greater than it was a decade ago.

“It’s pretty much a mess,” she said.

This story was originally published February 13, 2015 at 5:37 PM with the headline "West Coast labor dispute leaves Wichita companies out at sea."