Retail port traffic high despite strike threat

WASHINGTON Traffic at the U.S.’s major retail container ports is moving smoothly and should hit a record high in August despite the threat of a short-term clerical workers’ strike at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to the monthly Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Global Insight.

Rank-and-file members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63, the Marine Clerks Association, recently authorized a strike, but negotiations were continuing even though the union’s contract expired June 30. Port Tracker has moved the ports’ congestion rating from low to moderate, because of the possible job action. All other U.S. ports covered by Port Tracker – Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston and Savannah on the East Coast, and Houston on the Gulf Coast – are currently rated “low” for congestion, the same as last month.

“These are the nation’s two largest retail container ports, and retailers will be watching this situation very closely,” NRF vp and international trade counsel Erik Autor said. “With the back-to-school season upon us and the holiday coming soon, retailers need to be prepared to handle any disruptions that might occur.

Nationwide, the ports surveyed handled 1.37 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEU) of container traffic in May, the most recent month for which actual numbers are available. That was down 0.2% from May 2006 but up 3.3% from this April. Volume continued up in June, which was estimated at 1.4 million TEU (up 0.1% from June 2006), and July is forecast at 1.48 million TEU (up 6.3% from July 2006).