From Christmas toys to clothing and auto parts, shortages of imported products are forcing factories to idle, store shelves to sit empty and consumers to panic. What else is in short supply? The truth about what’s causing this economic crisis.
President Joe Biden, who brags about running “the most pro-union administration in history,” won’t admit that longshoremen’s unions are holding the nation hostage, refusing to allow the use of automated equipment to unload container ships and get the goods onto trucks faster.
The United States is the world’s largest importer, but its major ports, at Los Angeles and Long Beach, rank a dismal 328 and 333 in the World Bank’s Port Performance Index. That means nightmare inefficiency, worse than most Third World countries. Not one US port made it into the top 50 for speed and efficiency. In contrast, Japan’s Yokohama port ranks No. 1
Nearly 100 container ships have been waiting off the Los Angeles coastline to be unloaded. The longer they wait, the more prices for imported goods rise, clobbering consumers.
Last Wednesday, Biden announced a “game-changer,” saying the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach would stay open more hours for a “90-day sprint” to Christmas. Truth is, most ports around the world operate 24/7. Port operators here haven’t done that in the past, because union contracts require paying higher hourly rates for night and weekend labor. Dockworkers already average $171,000 a year. Wednesday’s announcement was a concession from port operators, not the unions
But increased hours won’t fix the bottlenecks. The added hours will boost cargo movement by less than 10 percent or an estimated 3,500 containers a week. The real problem is the unions’ tooth-and-nail opposition to labor-saving equipment. Cranes in automated ports operate at least twice as fast as cranes in outdated US ports. Biden’s port czar, John Porcari, let the truth out when he said last week it’s “your grandfather’s infrastructure that we’re dealing with.”