Why U.S. Ports Are Some Of The Least Efficient In The World

THERE IS NOT A TRUCKER SHORTAGE. Trucking companies treat their people so poorly, pay so poorly, "train" so poorly, and leave all of the responsibility on those drivers that more than half of all drivers quit within 1 year.

OMG 😱 As an independent trucker, we desperately need automation. The ILWU are a punch of TURTLES 🐢. While they get to sleep in their beds at home with their families, we truckers have to get up really early, leaving our families, to get in long lines waiting before the Ports open in the morning 7am. When the ILWU members get to work, supposedly at 7am, they don’t start work until 8am, or later. Then they take their 1st break around 9:45am to 10:30am; lunch break around 11:45am to 1:15pm; last break around 2:45pm to 3:30pm; and finally work stoppage around 4:30pm. Night shift won’t begin till 6pm. So the all the Ports with ILWU are totally broken and inefficient. Where’s the productivity when they all MILK THE COWS to the very last drops. While the independent truckers sit idling by waiting for loads hours on ends. We need the Federal government oversight board to get involved. Please help us truckers out. We need help. Thanks 🙏.

This have been happening for years. The pandemic just showed how inefficient the ports are.

I feel that a expansion of railroads would help alleviate some of the burden by cutting down on trucks needed EDIT: no I’m not suggesting that trains go to your local Walmart or Dennys. I’m referring to long haul trips being expanded. They should travel long distances to offload at train stations then transfer to trucks for short hauling distances. They already do this. I’m just saying it should be expanded.

I went into La port to pick up a 40’ HC of auto parts and took it to Lexington, KY. It took nearly the entire day to get in and out of the port. I have a TWIC but don’t go into that port very often so like most all ports their systems of doing things can be different and confusing. If you get a trouble ticket it gets difficult knowing where to go. Port workers tend to be not very helpful or friendly and their work hours are so restrictive. If you are only open to trucks from 8-4 then everyone has to cram in during that short window. I’ll never go into any west coast ports again. Not worth the time. The southeast ports are much easier to deal with.

There is no shortage of truck drivers. It's a shortage on pay for these loads, given the wait time. Pay more and more drivers will haul containers. Also the ports can start accepting empty containers so drivers can use that trailer to grab another container. Problem solved 🤷🏽‍♂️

I shudder to think how the US will look in 10 or 15 yrs. the level of neglect and dysfunction is truly mind boggling

the main problem is the need to expand infrastructure to the port itself, california has always directed all traffic to just one giant port in los angeles instead of spreading the port all along all of it's coast

Summed up in a nutshell, US port workers don't work 24/7 shifts

The robots don't take a 45-minute coffee break and 90-minute lunch breaks, in an 8 hour period. That's the work schedule in Oakland.

Automation and efficiency should be promoted when appropriate - not avoided for the sake of keeping jobs.

The word efficiency is a word you hardly hear any US worker would say. You'd almost always hear them say "work smarter not harder". 99.9999999999% of the time they think they're smart but not efficient. When I worked for an American company with a large presence in Germany. US HQ executives couldn't understand why the Germans are 3x faster than their US counterparts. One German said "Work more efficiently. Mind you they also go on vacation 6 weeks per year and not more than 8-9 hours a day. US side works at least 10hrs and rarely goes on vacation.

Fighting automation keeps people doing tedious and repetitive work. The unions should be guiding the transition rather than blocking it.

Here in Brazil, the government passed a new cabotage law last year encouraging maritime transport to reduce the dependence on roads in our logistics. Some ports have been modernized in the last decade with many terminals being privatized.

One of my friends works for Evergreen Marine Company in Taiwan got the bonus equals to 40 months of his salaries at the end of 2021.

06:50 let me stop you right there, Gene Seroka. Unlike the ports, which for years and decades had bankers' hours, with a one-hour lunch where everything stops, at least at the truck gates, warehouses mostly had double shifts for years. And even if they only had one shift, there usually is a security guard present that makes it possible to drop off a trailer . I am calling bulls___t on your narrative.

Not sure if I'm missing something... but if the Port of LA is the biggest in US and handling 10million TEUs is a challenge they can't solve, how is it the Port of Singapore can handle 37.5million TEUs in the same period?

An interesting news piece: We are experiencing the same thing here in the port of Montreal, of course on a smaller scale. What is common is a resistance in automation and new technical procedures. The Quebec gov and city gov have been promising private roads and direct links to highways but this has not happened yet. Much of what is coming in is from Europe for us, Ontario and the rest of Canada, also a portion of the north eastern USA. Ports just like airports should be opened 24/7 with 3 X 8 hour shift, and like most factories/industrials here do, work on rotation. But should also have mandatory days where they close like xmas, new years.

Every day we find out that America is least efficient in another thing.. I guess cracks can no longer be hidden, What happened US?

Offload the ships directly to train. Run the trains 50 or more miles inland to a real yard. Have multiple yards. No trucks at the port. Only at inland yards. Inland yards can reload rail cars for further shipments if not by truck.