Oakland terminals will not weigh containers for SOLAS VGM compliance

Meanwhile, Ed DeNike, president of SSA Containers, says truckers picking up import boxes at the Oakland International Container Terminal will need an appointment.    Three container terminals operators that are part of the Oakland Marine Terminal Operators Agreement (OAKMTOA) said Tuesday that they are incapable of providing verified gross mass (VGM) weighing services that adhere to the guidelines under the Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) treaty scheduled to go into effect on July 1.
   Their announcement mirrors one made by the 13 terminals in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach last week.
   The new International Maritime Organization guidelines require shippers to notify ocean carriers of the weight of containers before they are loaded onto a ship.
   The three terminal operators said the announcement was based on the lack of terminal infrastructure necessary to obtain VGMs using the methods specified within the guideline amendments. The operators are SSA Terminals, which runs the Oakland International Container Terminal (OICT), TraPac, and Everport Terminal Services, which operates the Ben E. Nutter Terminal. Ports America Outer Harbor Terminal is a member of the agreement, but is in the process of shutting down its facility.
   Meanwhile, Ed DeNike, president of SSA Containers, said his company plans to require truckers coming to pick-up import containers at OICT to have an appointment. Imports account for about half the terminal’s volume, according to DeNike.
   Everport uses an appointment system in eModal for grounded import loads, while TraPac does not use an appointment system, said the Port of Oakland.
   Five terminals in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach require appointments by truckers and five more are planning to require appointments by the end of the year.
   DeNike said the requirement for appointments at OICT will probably be implemented in the next week or two. The terminal had planned to require appointments earlier, but has been making changes to a computer program that will be used for the process.
   DeNike estimates that with the closure of the Outer Harbor Terminal that was run by Ports America and TIL, OICT has about 75-80 percent of Oakland’s container volume.
   He also said an arbitration panel has upheld a local arbitrator’s decision last month that SSA improperly “fired” workers for a day when they refused to enter OICT earlier than 7 a.m. The arbitrator ruled that SSA had to go back to the local grievance process and resolve the dispute.
   SSA sent OICT equipment operators who are members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) home for a day when they decided to alter past practice and not come into the terminal before 7 a.m. to do safety checks on and warm up equipment so that the terminal can immediately be productive when the shift begins.
   DeNike said workers since late March have been reporting for work at 7 a.m., but  this is a change from past practice in Oakland, and contrary how members of the ILWU operate in other ports. He emphasized that SSA pays the equipment operators for an extra hour to come in and get the equipment warmed up. They don’t have to report for work a full hour early, but merely arrive early enough to do the safety check and start the equipment.
   “We do the same pay practice up and down the coast,” he said. When they enter the terminal at 7 a.m as they are now doing, he explained, “By the time we get working it is 7:20 and we lose 20 minutes, sometimes a half hour.”
   He said the dispute will be further discussed at a Joint Port Labor Relations Committee meeting today, and could still eventually be taken to a Coast arbitrator.
   DeNike said he is puzzled as to why the union is taking the position it is taking, saying, “They get nothing out of it.”