BY MARK B. SOLOMON, SENIOR EDITOR
PORTS
transportationreport
on the East Coast.
On the waterfront
Ten years after the infamous
West Coast port lockout,
another labor-management
showdown looms—this time
ON SEPT. 29, 2002, THE PACIFIC MARITIME
Association (PMA), the body representing waterfront management on the U.S. West Coast, locked
out members of the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union (ILWU) amid allegations the
labor union was engaging in a deliberate work slowdown to support its demands for a new contract.
The lockout left heavily laden containerships stranded outside of ports from Seattle to San
Diego, with no workers available to unload the cargo. By the time it ended 10 days later—much
longer than anyone originally expected—the lockout had disrupted supply chains from coast
to coast and had cost importers and the U.S. economy hundreds of millions, if not billions, of
dollars.
It also caught many shippers and importers with their pants down. At the time of the lockout,
more than 80 percent of seagoing imports from Asia entered the United States via West Coast
ports. With dock activity paralyzed and no other port options, ships simply idled in the Pacific
Ocean, creating a massive logjam. It took three months after the strike ended for the backlog to
be cleared.
In the wake of the lockout, many importers vowed to never get caught in that situation again
and began a multiyear gateway diversification program. Today, East and Gulf Coast ports handle 30 percent of Asian imports—mostly through the Panama Canal—while West Coast ports
handle about 70 percent, according to data from Robert Sappio, managing director at consultancy Alvarez & Marsal. In 2000, about 15 percent of all Asian seagoing imports entered through
the East, with 85 percent coming in through the West Coast, he said.
A decade later, the agility of the seagoing supply chain could be tested again, this time by a
labor-management showdown looming in the East. Since March, the International
Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has been engaged in a war of words with the United States
