NOVEMBER 2021 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 17
FEATURE
HOLIDAY SHOPPERS TO GET CREATIVE
“The analogy would be the boa constrictor
that ate the mouse. There›s a lump
in it and the lump is the constraint in
the throughput of the supply chain, and
it moves along each time you solve for
a constraint,” said Joe Dunlap, global
head of the supply chain advisory team
at CBRE Group, a commercial real estate
services fi rm.
‹YOU DON›T BUILD
A CHURCH FOR
CHRISTMAS›
Frank Ponce De Leon, International
Longshore and Warehouse Union Coast
Committeeman, summarized the problem
at U.S. ports, which the Commerce
department estimates handle 76% of all
trade, during comments last week.
“You don›t build a church for Christmas
and Easter; you build it for a regular
Sunday service,” he said. “With the
unprecedented influx of cargo, it›s
like Christmas and Easter on the docks
every single day, with more ships coming
in and the pews have been full for
months, and there›s nowhere left to
sit — or stand.”
Dockworkers remain available for
24-hour shift s to help clear the port
backlogs, the longshore union said.
But that is not true of the people who
move goods from the ships or from
ports, other unions say.
“It’s going to
be like a Black
November,”
said Martin Cantor.
“One of the major problems with the
current state of logistics is the shortage
of port truckdrivers. They are not paid
a living wage,” said Teamsters General
President Jim Hoff a, who participated
in the meeting with Biden.
The backup may be exacerbating that
shortage, because many port drivers
are not paid for the hours they spend
waiting to pick up a container, making
the job less appealing.
Still, there is no evidence that experienced
workers are sitting on the
sidelines: U.S. transportation and
warehousing are employing more
people now then they did before
the pandemic started, data from
the Bureau of Labor Statistics show.
WAREHOUSES OVERFULL,
UNDERSTAFFED
Like seaports, warehouses work
best when they are moving products
in and out quickly and predictably.
Instead, port officials say, they are
packed to the rafters and struggling
with employee hiring and retention.
U.S. companies are leasing warehouse
space at record levels to
handle the large influx of goods
for e-commerce.
The markets that serve Southern
California ports include Los Angeles
and the Inland Empire region
nearby, which had second-quarter
vacancy rates of 1.2% and 1.4%, respectively,
according to CBRE data.
“Space is clearly tight,” Dunlap said.
It is not just that warehouses are at
capacity, Steve DeHaan, CEO of the
International Warehouse Logistics Association,
said in a recent letter to John
Porcari, port envoy for the White House
Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force.
Warehouse owners, tenants, and
workforce employers can be diff erent
companies, which makes drawing up
new contracts to pay round-the-clock
workers difficult. “The warehouse
cannot arbitrarily make this decision,”
DeHaan said.
Moving a warehouse to 24/7 operations
adds another layer of risk, he said.
“For example, receiving a container
at 6 a.m. that was scheduled for 3 a.m.
delivery disrupts operations for the
entire day,” DeHaan said. “The goal of
reducing container congestion over the
next 90 days is ambitious.”
Cantor expects shoppers will continue
to feel the crunch throughout the season.
He said: “We don›t even know what the
popular toy will be because of the fi asco.”
continued from page 16
People shop during the Black Friday sales shopping event at Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City on Nov. 23, 2018. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton)
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