ILA Contract Negotiations

Is it in the best interest of Steam Ship Lines to go forward with the current ILA contract extension talks? In my opinion, it is absolutely not.
What is the reason for the extension in the first place? Most say it is to remove an idea from customers and shipper's minds that there could be a strike on the East/Gulf Coast. Other's say it is remove the initial wage increase set to go in effect on Oct 1st of $1.50 an hour. This equals out to be about a 5% increase in cargo through-put rates. This 5% gets paid by the Terminals passed on to the SSL and then onto the shipper in some form. Is this short term money really worth what the SSL's are giving up?
The SSL's are giving up the Container Royalty Cap and raising the minimum hourly rate to $20. The removal of the cap equates to an extra roughly $40million in 2010/11. The increase in the minimum rage is another almost 20% increase in wage pay out. This is a lot of money being given up for just a %5 increase in wages.

Maybe the USMX should rethink this stance instead of moving forward with more talks this week.

Bayonne Bridge

From the Journal of Commerce, 9/17/09
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Bayonne Bridge Too Low, Corps Study Says

Peter T. Leach | Sep 17, 2009 9:28PM GMT

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Thursday released the results of a study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers saying the Bayonne Bridge’s low air draft will pose an increasing obstacle for the newest and largest commercial ships in coming decades.

The study, commissioned by the Port Authority, looked at potential solutions, such as establishing a new height of 215 feet either by jacking up the existing 78-year-old span or building a new bridge. Another potential alternative would be building tunnel linking Bayonne and Staten Island.

The port authority re-emphasized its willingness to determine how best to address the navigational limitations posed by the current clearance of 151 to 156 feet between the bridge deck and the Kill van Kull waterway, depending on tides.

It expects increasing numbers of big ships to use its port facilities following an expansion of the Panama Canal, which is slated for completion in 2015.

Port Authority officials already have implemented the Corps’ recommendation that “further planning and environmental analyses by the PANYNJ are warranted for the identification of a preferred project alternative.’’ Last month, the agency authorized a $10 million planning and engineering analysis to determine the best solution for rectifying the Bayonne Bridge problem.

The Port Authority’s planning efforts to identify a preferred alternative will take approximately one-and-a-half years. The initiative also will provide a conceptual engineering study and a preliminary environmental analysis of alternatives.

The Bayonne Bridge Air Draft Analysis completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers is available on The Port Authority of NY & NJ’s Web site at: http://www.panynj.gov/CommutingTravel/bridges/pdfs/Bayonne-bridge-Air-Draft-Analysis-paper.pdf.

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After reading this and waiting, I could not help myself from posting again. This is absolutely ridiculous. The NYNJ Port Authority spent 10 million dollars to put what everybody already knew on paper, The Bridge is TOO LOW. No kidding it is. But the PA wants to continually drag out actually making a move to do something about this impedance. Well in my opinion, it is all ready to late. The new bigger Panama Canal is going to open in 2013, and the Steam Ship Lines are going to want to use their new Super Post Panamax size vessels starting in 2014, and the NYNJPA want to continue to study the bridge, HOW SAD. Just do something already, or the New York / New Jersey economy is going to suffer severely. These larger vessels are going to have only 1 terminal that they can steam in and out of and perform operations at, GCT. This will give them a monopoly over all the other container terminals, and make it impossible for them to survive. The cargo isnt going to barge to these other terminals, it is going to be detoured to the NE's deep harbor, NORFOLK, VA.

Wake up NY/NJ and start doing something, or there will be 250,000 people out of jobs, and all your daily goods you buy are going to skyrocket in price.