[QUOTE=tugsailor;134258]This will need deep pockets or massive subsidies to get rolling. LNG is probably the key to the whole thing working — following the next big rise in diesel prices.
It also requires the right routes with adequate container volume. It’s probably much cheaper to drive a container two hours down the highway from Portland to Boston than it is pay longshoremen to handle it twice. That is the wrong route. NY longshore costs and unpredictable delays make that less attractive than driving down the highway for eight hours. I just don’t see Portland having enough container volume.[/QUOTE]
What percent of the cost to move a container is due to labor?
This doesn’t answer your question, so I apologize, but it does bring in another perspective on the labor side of this debate. Personally I think these people are nuts and this is a great example of why unions are corrupt and useless and help no one while hurting everyone. All I see in this is a payoff to the longshore union from the Teamsters. The only real opposition to these types of project are the truckers who will have less cargo to move, even though moving it by sea is cheaper and better for the environment.
The Case Against Short Sea Shipping
Despite the hype and false promises, SSS is an attack on our union jobs
This article was published in the Winter 2010 issue of the Coast Longshore Division Newsletter.
[QUOTE]
NON-UNION CARGO: Short sea shipping barges on the Duwamish River (shown here) and the Columbia transport cargo loaded by non-union dockworkers.
Most longshore workers, particularly those of us registered in small ports, have heard the rhetoric associated with short sea shipping (SSS), sometimes referred to as marine highways.
The United States government and many small public port authorities are championing the concept of SSS. Why? The United States government wants to undermine our position in the cargo transportation industry. Ports want a piece of the free money that the current administration is irresponsibly throwing around. Wannabe freight moving entrepreneurs and underutilized ports are telling all of us up and down the West Coast that there are jobs in it for us and our communities.
The Coast Committee, supported by the Coast Longshore Division Caucus, opposes the United States government’s usage of scarce tax dollars to promote and subsidize SSS in the north/south movement of containers on the West Coast of the Americas. Such water trade movement, by its very nature, cannot compete economically with truck and rail (even if subsidized) and will only serve to further drive down our sector’s wages and our working conditions. It will establish the framework for non-union and non-ILWU predatory union challenges to the Coast Longshore Division’s jurisdiction.
Just what is short sea shipping? Simply put, it is the movement of containers between points along the North American coasts of the United States, Canada and Mexico (Hawaii excluded).
Today, this type of marine traffic is regulated, in part, by cabotage laws, the Jones Act, and the fact that it’s less efficient than truck and rail.
On the United States West Coast, SSS functions, unsubsidized, in four trade routes: between Seattle and Anchorage; between Tacoma and Anchorage; between Alaskan ports; and between the Columbia upriver ports and Portland.
Barge and rail travel side-by-side on the Columbia River.
In Seattle, not a single registered longshoreman handles the cargo associated with SSS. It is all handled on the Duwamish River, either by non-union workers or Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU) represented longshoremen under a PCLCD substandard agreement. In Alaska, some ports are union, like the ILWU in Dutch Harbor, and the Teamsters longshore in Anchorage. But outside of those union ports, cargo is handled by other maritime unions or non-union crews associated with the towboat crew. In the upriver ports of the Columbia River, the containers are handled exclusively by non-union dockworkers. Operators in non-union upriver Columbia River ports are requesting government subsidies to build barges designed to bypass ILWU longshoremen in Portland and transport commodities directly to the non-union Duwamish, where the barge can be unloaded for the short truck transport to Seattle’s International Port.
Even the boats towing the barges have crews that are a mix of union and non-union, depending on company. Many towboat companies in the trade are double breasted.
Why is the SSS industry dominated by cheap labor? The answer is simple. With trucking deregulation and the efficiencies associated with its door-to-door service, no other transportation mode can compete unless wages and working conditions are markedly deflated. Even with government subsidy, wages and working conditions must be pushed below PCL&CA standards. No amount of government subsidy can counterbalance this reality.
In addition, short distance barge service for standardized commodities (containers) does not and cannot offer same day delivery. Large numbers of containers must be collected in a central location over days before being loaded to a barge. The container must be double- and triple-handled after leaving its source location. All this and more adds to the cost of handling. A shipper such as Wal-Mart will not pay more just for the environment or to limit congestion so your commute drive will be easier.
Government is trying to put just enough subsidies out there to bait a potential operator into squeezing the rest of the necessary cost reductions from labor and ports. Already, the Coast Committee is being approached with requests for manning and wage reductions that would be unique to SSS. Potential operators are seeking advantages from non-Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) member public port authorities to lease blocks of property for the purpose of establishing container yards (CY) with no ILWU Coast Longshore Division presence.
Other unions, including non-Longshore Divisions in our own ILWU family, are clamoring to fill the gap in the leased yards. The irony is that even they cannot agree to work cheaply enough to make the truck/barge economics work. In ports like Eureka and Coos Bay, where private docks are the norm, we don’t even have a historical relationship that we can rely on to protect our jurisdiction.
Other maritime unions, like the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (MEBA), International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), Seafarers International Union (SIU) and our own IBU, see SSS as more work for them, despite the fact that in some cases the work may be that which is traditionally assigned to Coast Longshore Division longshoremen. MEBA represents dockworkers handling cargo to and from barges in Alaska as we speak. MEBA has even cut a substandard deal with Horizon on the East Coast for the trade. The AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trade Department (TTD) wants to support SSS, but the Coast Longshore Division is blocking any formal endorsement. Solidarity among these unions suddenly becomes important when the Jones Act is attacked or the cabotage laws are jeopardized, and these unions fail to see the connection between SSS and the fact that they’re under attack, and they ask the Coast Longshore Division for help.
Subsidy and promotion of SSS by the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico, is an effort, one of several fronts, to deregulate maritime transportation and drive organized labor consequentially from the Industry.
SSS is not a panacea for additional union jobs. It is just the opposite.
Scarce government tax dollars should be used for land-based infrastructure designed to efficiently move containers to and from established ports. We need dedicated freight corridors, bridges, rail enhancements and dredging that bring stability to the industry — not the funding, promotion, and blind acceptance of a concept that even with subsidy will fail, and drag organized labor down with it.[/QUOTE]
From what Ive heard,please tell me if I’m wrong. The whole basis of the container barge was to 1. Cut emissions down. 2. release truck traffic in NJ/NY area. has anyone heard the same? No matter what, you handle a container twice. I’m in favor of more use of railroad and truck service in Portland. Maybe it would create some needed labor force.
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;134273]Have you missed that whole thing where there’s a ferry being fitted out in the far east right now that is due to start service between Portland and Yarmouth this summer?[/QUOTE]
That I have. I must be spending too much time on the West Coast.
[QUOTE=highseasmechanic;134286]This concept would be cool to see in an area like the San Francisco Bay. Using ATB’s to move containers upriver to Sacramento and Stockton.[/QUOTE]
I heard that sort of thing started up a year or so ago. I don’t think they’re ATB’s, rather Mississippi-style pushboats and deck barges, but same concept. I remember hearing Stockton to San Francisco, can’t say if there was anything about Sacramento. Anybody else remember hearing that this was started recently?
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;134276]This doesn’t answer your question, so I apologize, but it does bring in another perspective on the labor side of this debate. Personally I think these people are nuts and this is a great example of why unions are corrupt and useless and help no one while hurting everyone. All I see in this is a payoff to the longshore union from the Teamsters. The only real opposition to these types of project are the truckers who will have less cargo to move, even though moving it by sea is cheaper and better for the environment.[/QUOTE]
I won’t attempt to speak to ships, but when it comes to barges, most longshoremen , in most ports, don’t have a clue. The gangs are grossly oversized, they are slow, and do a crappy job of lashing. They cost far far too much, and that is the main reason that so little freight moves by coastwise barge. The longshoremen in Dutch Harbor do a great job lashing barges, but they are an exception, not the rule.
If you want to know why short sea shipping is generally uneconomic in the US and there are a lot less good tug and barge jobs than there should be, you don’t have to look any further than the ridiculously overpaid and overstaffed longshoremens unions.
[QUOTE=tugsailor;134288]I won’t attempt to speak to ships, but when it comes to barges, most longshoremen , in most ports, don’t have a clue. The gangs are grossly oversized, they are slow, and do a crappy job of lashing. They cost far far too much, and that is the main reason that so little freight moves by coastwise barge. The longshoremen in Dutch Harbor do a great job lashing barges, but they are an exception, not the rule.
If you want to know why short sea shipping is generally uneconomic in the US and there are a lot less good tug and barge jobs than there should be, you don’t have to look any further than the ridiculously overpaid and overstaffed longshoremens unions.[/QUOTE]
Amen brother Tugsailor, AMEN. Sing it from the rooftops! I nominate this one for most truthful post of the year. You don’t have to look any further than Marlon Brando, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb to know EXACTLY what is holding back a major part of this country’s transportation sector that is just screaming to be developed.
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;134276]This doesn’t answer your question, so I apologize, but it does bring in another perspective on the labor side of this debate. Personally I think these people are nuts and this is a great example of why unions are corrupt and useless and help no one while hurting everyone. All I see in this is a payoff to the longshore union from the Teamsters. The only real opposition to these types of project are the truckers who will have less cargo to move, even though moving it by sea is cheaper and better for the environment.[/QUOTE]
The barge on the Duwamish ,in Seattle, looks like Boyer, but it has a lot of yellow Northland containers on it. So my guess is Northland. Boyer is non-union and loads on its own wharf without union labor. Northland was non-union for a longtime, but is now IBU. They use IBU union labor on the boats and on the dock. Dunlap is a union tug company that does most of Northlands linehaul towing.
[QUOTE=Steamer;134289]I don’t know who “they” are but I would stay far far away from them …[/QUOTE]
Lol , Sea 3 Portsmouth, NH had a cold storage facility used receive product from ship. The company I worked for at the time hauled bulk LPG from there. Its since close , And most is moved by rail now. Prob the cost of keeping it cool is not worth the space.
[QUOTE=CETOOT70;134295]Lol , Sea 3 Portsmouth, NH had a cold storage facility used receive product from ship. The company I worked for at the time hauled bulk LPG from there. Its since close , And most is moved by rail now. Prob the cost of keeping it cool is not worth the space.[/QUOTE]
It doesn’t seem like it would be worth spending money to refrigerate the stuff. The difference in volume between LPG at 60F and 32F is only about 4 percent and, just like petroleum, it is delivered and paid for with the temperature corrections applied so it’s not like chilling it provides a great deal more storage capacity or profit for anyone. Sounds like a strange practice to me unless chilling the empty tank allowed faster filling of the bulk tanks. Would love to know the reasoning behind it.
[QUOTE=tugsailor;134288]If you want to know why short sea shipping is generally uneconomic in the US and there are a lot less good tug and barge jobs than there should be, you don’t have to look any further than the ridiculously overpaid and overstaffed longshoremens unions.[/QUOTE]
There is no more reason to believe that the Jones Act is causing problems, specifically the ones we are seeing in the press, then there is to believe the only thing standing in the way of Short Sea Shipping is the unions.
Beliefs in the “free market” are always limited to cases where it’s the other guys paycheck
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;134330]There is no more reason to believe that the Jones Act is causing problems, specifically the ones we are seeing in the press, then there is to believe the only thing standing in the way of Short Sea Shipping is the unions.
Beliefs in the “free market” are always limited to cases where it’s the other guys paycheck[/QUOTE]
Maritime Unions are not standing in the way of short sea shipping, but longshore unions are. If maritime unions are standing in the way of anything, its higher wages for mariners. just look at AMO wages, or the low wages that the SIU enforces for Crowley.
The longshore unions oppose short sea shipping as indicated in the article from a longshore union publication pasted earlier in this thread. The high cost of longshore labor to stuff and unstuff containers, and to load and lash, and unload and unlash, containers makes short sea shipping uncompetitive with trucks.
From an operating cost standpoint, tug and barge is by far the cheapest domestic transportation mode, followed by trains, and trucks.
So why is it that trucks carry virtually all container freight moving along the East Coast, and that one does not see many container barges?
[QUOTE=tugsailor;134353]
From an operating cost standpoint, tug and barge is by far the cheapest domestic transportation mode, followed by trains, and trucks.
So why is that trucks carry virtually container freight moving along the East Coast is carried by truck, and one does not see many container barges?[/QUOTE]
I don’t know the economics of SSS. I’d be surprised though if the sweet spot was above FOC and below union wages.
I would think worker would be a little wary at this point of the argument that all we need to is lower wages and wait for the money to trickle down to our level.
BTW Have you read “The Box” yet? Not exactly on topic but in the neighborhood and a great read, well worth it.
[QUOTE=Steamer;134306]It doesn’t seem like it would be worth spending money to refrigerate the stuff. The difference in volume between LPG at 60F and 32F is only about 4 percent and, just like petroleum, it is delivered and paid for with the temperature corrections applied so it’s not like chilling it provides a great deal more storage capacity or profit for anyone. Sounds like a strange practice to me unless chilling the empty tank allowed faster filling of the bulk tanks. Would love to know the reasoning behind it.[/QUOTE]
Sea 3 stored 21 million gals with 2 tanks Refrigerateded at -24 deg below zero. (Had to call my ex boss for info,been over six years since Ive loaded there) Product was loaded with a single arm @ 125 psi,so our trailers had to have at least 100-115 psi in them to load ,or it would slug the valve on the pumping system(plant hated that when that happened lol). So thats about 2.5 million gals extra storage. For some reason they stopped taking ship bulk and went to rail. Not sure why.
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;134356]I don’t know the economics of SSS. I’d be surprised though if the sweet spot was above FOC and below union wages.
I would think worker would be a little wary at this point of the argument that all we need to is lower wages and wait for the money to trickle down to our level.
BTW Have you read “The Box” yet? Not exactly on topic but in the neighborhood and a great read, well worth it.[/QUOTE]
In general, I am in favor of higher wages for most workers.
In waterborne domestic transportation, mariners are underpaid and understaffed, while semi-skilled longshoremen that get to go home every night are ridiculously overpaid and overstaffed. Thats before we even get into issues of theft on the docks, and shakedowns to clear freight off the dock within a reasonable time that still occurs in some ports.
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;134287]I heard that sort of thing started up a year or so ago. I don’t think they’re ATB’s, rather Mississippi-style pushboats and deck barges, but same concept. I remember hearing Stockton to San Francisco, can’t say if there was anything about Sacramento. Anybody else remember hearing that this was started recently?[/QUOTE]
Last summer Brusco started running a 400’er between sac (I think) and oakland. Running about once a week. I THINK they started with the Arthur Brusco, and then swapped in the Heidi L after her upgrade to tier 2. I haven’t heard anything lately though