In a new pressure tactic in a series of partial work stoppages, the union representing 1,200 longshoremen at the Port of Montreal today began an “unlimited strike” uniquely targeting Termont, which operates two terminals accounting for 40% of container cargo at Canada’s second biggest container port after Vancouver.
The American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) 2024 Convention in Boston continued October 29th with discussion of $3 billion in new federal grants for clean ports and testimonials from port executives about the work of AAPA
The AAPA Annual Convention opened in Boston on October 28th to hear a detailed check list of new and more complex hiring criteria port commissioners must face, according to veteran maritime headhunter Susan Dvonch.
This follows the recent longshore strike; the huge 61% wage increase and the still unresolved issue of automation between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) which represents employers at U.S. East and Gulf ports.
On October 18th, the Bloomberg Editorial Board also criticized Donald Trump’s plan to put a 20% tariff on all U.S. imports, arguing it would “raise prices, provoke retaliation, hobble the economy and impose especially high costs on the lower-paid, who’d be least able to bear them.”
Plans by the new French government to reduce the nation’s alarming budget deficit through public spending cuts and “temporary and exceptional” tax hikes, is set to have a direct impact on the transport sector with ocean shipping giant CMA CGM hardest-hit.
The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO) is considering a ‘pricing mechanism’ to accelerate international shipping’s transition away from greenhouse gases (ghg) and toward zero emissions.
Technology, computerized tracking, and tracing, the continuing demise of high-season, slack season shipping largely driven by the steady surge of e-commerce have dramatically altered the worlds of air cargo and freight forwarding and depersonalized global logistics, contends Angel Rodriguez, a 30-year-veteran of the supply chain’s most time-sensitive transportation sector.
Charging that maritime employers are “dragging their heels” in deadlocked negotiations, Port of Montreal longshoremen today began an “indefinite” ban on overtime work in another industrial action short of a general strike.