Firms may send business elsewhere if walkout persists
Thursday April 24, 2003
By Keith Darcé
Containerized cargo movement through the Port of New Orleans further slowed this week because of a week-and-a-half-old work stoppage by local independent truck drivers who want higher pay and better working conditions.
Container traffic through the port, which normally runs at about 1,000 boxes per week, was off by 50 percent Wednesday, port Executive Director Gary LaGrange said. A week ago, he said traffic had fallen between 25 percent and 40 percent because of the strike.
The slowdown means port customers must wait longer to ship and receive cargo through the port. Those delays often result in higher storage and dockage fees for the shippers.
Meanwhile, truckers staffing picket lines around the port appeared to be settling into a stalemate that has no signs of ending soon.
"They're trying to starve us out, but we were prepared for this," Gretna trucker Gary Bass said as he sat near the entrance to the port's Uptown terminals.
Effects of the strike are spreading beyond the docks.
Kansas City Southern, one of six major railroads serving the city, has rerouted several hundred containers that normally pass through New Orleans each week because the company can't find truckers to move the cargo through the city, KCS Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Gerald Davies said.
More than 100 truckers staffed picket lines Wednesday at the entrance to Uptown wharves at Felicity and Tchoupitoulas streets, and near the entrance to the port's France Road cargo terminals on Almonaster Avenue.
It remains unclear how many of the region's independent truckers are participating in the protest. Although striking truckers said nearly all of the region's drivers were taking part, many trucking firms have told their customers that most of their drivers remain on the job but aren't working because they fear retaliation from pickets.
Though Harbor Police have received numerous reports of vandalism to rigs driven by truckers who have refused to join the strike, they have confirmed only one incident involving a flattened tire, LaGrange said.
Truckers, who work as independent contractors for local trucking firms, parked their rigs after spending several months trying to get companies to negotiate higher pay rates and better working conditions for them.
Most of the truckers participating in the strike are short-haul drivers who carry shipping containers and other cargo between local wharves, warehouses and railroad yards. The truckers also provide a vital link for cargo traveling across the country on East Coast and West Coast train lines that converge on the city but do not connect to one another.
In terms of weight, short-haul truckers handle a small portion of the total cargo that moves through New Orleans and only 1 percent of the shipping containers moved through U.S. ports.
Still, the services provided by the truckers are crucial to the port because the steel boxes they carry contain high-value cargo that generates lucrative fees for the local maritime industry. The boxes generate more jobs along local docks because they require more labor to move than other types of cargo.
Informal talks between truckers and the 22 trucking firms operating in the city broke down just before the walkout after attorneys for both sides said organized discussions about trucking rates would violate federal and state anti-trust laws that bar free market participants from fixing prices. Those same rules prevent independent truckers from forming a labor union.
Growing concern that the strike could be prolonged prompted some truckers and maritime industry executives this week to begin searching for a moderator in the dispute.
New Orleans Public Belt General Manager Jim Bridger said Wednesday that about 20 people had asked him to intervene as an arbitrator in the dispute. The Public Belt is a city-owned, nonprofit railroad that provides local connections between regional and national rail lines.
Striking truckers say a handful of trucking firm executives has offered some drivers raises, but the truckers said they won't go back to work until most of them get pay raise offers.
Because of the anti-trust restrictions blocking the two sides from negotiating as unified groups, Bridger said, no mechanism is in place to produce a resolution to the conflict.
"There is a general feeling that we are in the second week of this strike and no one has stepped forward to try to resolve it," he said. "It's just kind of floundering out there."
Bridger said he will take on the role if he gets nods from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's legal staff and from the Public Belt board of directors.
Nagin spokesman Chris Bonura said Wednesday there appeared to be no legal issues that would bar Bridger from intervening in the matter.
Bridger said something must be done quickly to prevent the strike's effects from deepening.
"I have had people from all six railroads (serving the city) call me over the past two days about the situation, saying they are considering rerouting cargo," he said.
Once shippers find other routes for moving their cargo, Bridger said, they will be reluctant to return that business to New Orleans even after the dispute is resolved.
Davies of Kansas City Southern said the strike has attracted the attention of senior executives at the railroad's corporate headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., even though only a small portion of the company's traffic passes through New Orleans.
"We talk about it every day," he said. "The longer this goes on, the bigger the impact and the bigger our concern."
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Keith Darcé can be reached at kdarce@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3491.