Canada’s Port of Vancouver handles some 1.7 million TEUs annually, and about 40% of it is moved in and out by truck.  The LA/Long Beach complex does about eight times as much volume as Vancouver and if local truckers took it upon themselves to go on that mid-summer vacation we talked about in Vol. III, Art. 12, can’t you just imagine what would happen to this nation’s economy?

What if the local drivers did stage a walkout?  Simply using a factor of eight;

 

• Where Vancouver drivers are leaving $ 24 million in shipments undelivered every day, LA/Long Beach drivers would neglect almost $ 200 million.

 

• Where the weekly loss in Vancouver is being estimated at $ 30 million, the corresponding weekly loss at the LA/Long Beach complex would be in the neighborhood of $ 240 million.

 

• Approximately 1,200 trucks have been idled at Vancouver, and about eight times that many would be idled in Southern California.

 

• Vancouver drivers are seeking a weekly increase in pay of about $ 150. Authorities have no objections to this figure but admit that they have  no clue with respect to a “methodology” of arranging this nominal increase.  Would the authorities in LA/Long Beach find a “methodology” that would generate a figure eight times as high if local drivers decided to take the same approach as their Canadian opposite numbers?

 

• Without a doubt, a satisfactory settlement will eventually come about up in Vancouver, and without a doubt, the hypothetical situation in Southern California would also be dealt with expeditiously. But it wouldn’t end there.  We’d see a  repeat of these scenarios sooner rather than later.

 

Is there a “methodology” that would keep the wheels turning without interruption?  Can there be even-handed treatment for those drivers, now being recognized as the vital link “that keeps our national economy moving … the key to the success at the port because theirs is the capacity that will move your freight off the port”?  “Even-handed treatment” just happens to be the elusive “methodology”, but it can’t be administered by those in authority until conventionally-structured terminal operations undergo a dramatic transformation.

 

“Even-handed treatment” means permanent employment and generous wages for these drivers.  Our in-house delivery system makes permanent employment and generous wages possible and this delivery system is a vital part of the dramatic transformation mentioned above.  The concept of setting up remedial operations “in-house” is completely alien to a conventionally-structured facility because of space constraints, but it is the creation of space by our patented system that makes possible our “in-house” delivery system as well as the numerous other advantages we’ve been emphasizing throughout these commentaries.