A work slowdown by dock workers on the West Coast, has reached a critical point where it is causing shipping delays of 30 days or longer in some cases for goods including car audio.
The slowdown (dock workers are working slower due to a dispute with the port) is creating headaches for many industries that rely on West Coast ports such as those in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. New car sales are being impacted as well.
Roughly 60 percent of all inbound containers are delayed by a week to 30 days or longer, said a car audio supplier.
A half dozen suppliers and distributors admitted they are experiencing product delays.
Phoenix Gold’s Ken Wiseman said, “It’s adding at least 3 weeks for all our brands [at AAMP of America],” noting its true for just about all goods coming from Asia. “It’s not just car audio, but anything coming into the ports. I’m talking clothing to perishable food. It’s really bad.”
While the work slowdown began in May, it has grown severe in recent weeks. The US government has been called in to help jump start negotiations between the port and dock workers union.
PowerBass said that suppliers were concerned about the port slowdown over Christmas, but the disruption was minimal. In recent weeks, however, the slowdown has grown more severe, said VP Sales & Marketing Robin McNeal. “For us, we’d hear the container is coming in Monday and then get a call it was Tuesday and then Wednesday. Now we don’t even know when it will come in. I’m sure everyone in our industry is affected.”
He noted that PowerBass always carries a large inventory, but said if the work slowdown continues it could cause shortages for all suppliers.
A leading amplifier/speaker company said, “We are experiencing delays at the port and yes, we currently have containers waiting there.”
Still another supplier said, “We have been monitoring the port situation since fall 2014 when we first learned of a possible issue, therefore we already had countermeasures in place. We brought in additional product early on based on our forecasting data, so we’re just experiencing around a two week delay for products. Our premium products are being air shipped so that they totally bypass the port and are not affected by the delay.”
One distributor said a small accessory maker had 20 to 30 shipping containers sitting at the port that were delayed for 3 weeks.
Another amplifier/speaker maker said its container arrived at the port last week but it doesn’t expect to see the product until March 15.
If the situation escalates to a full strike, it could cost the US $2 billion a day, said the National Retail Federation, according to USA Today.
Seaports in Canada, Mexico and along the U.S. Gulf Coast are not impacted but goods from Asia would take longer to reach those ports.
You can see aerial photos of the port slowdown by photographer Mike Kelley here.
The president should step in and get rid of these union thugs, much like Reagan did with air traffic controllers. These guys are only demanding more money and better conditions because they’re holding the ports hostage.
This will make trans shippers think about what they do to our industry………
If we just made everything here this wouldn’t be happening.
Think that through Simon, “here” is the problem, if it was made here, you’d have even more greedy union problems.
you gotta love unions. Thanks guys