Earlier this month, the Port of Oakland was hogging the headlines. Officials were caught with their hands in the cookie jar and “administrative action” was taken. It’s quite likely that nothing will come of this mess because other port officials will find a way to keep the lid on this can of worms.

So this week the Port of Portland (Oregon) is in the news, and it will take a lot more than just “administrative action” to push this story off the front page. Richard Read, at The Oregonian, writes: “After months of labor friction, snarled cargo, accusations of slowdowns, court orders and missed ship calls, a potential double meltdown looms on Portland’s waterfront. Two issues threaten to cripple international shipping, not just at the North Portland container yard, where trucks backed up more than a mile at times last summer, but also at Northwest terminals that handle a quarter of U.S. grain exports.

“The fight over whether longshoremen or electricians get to plug, unplug and monitor refrigerated shipping containers, or reefers, at the Port of Portland lands in court again Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon is expected to decide whether to hold the longshore union in contempt. Longshore union leaders continue negotiating with employers preparing for a lockout at Portland, Vancouver and Puget Sound grain terminals. A collapse in the talks refereed by a federal mediator would disrupt grain exports worth $ 10 billion a year, with longshoremen expected to protest on land and in boats.

“The separate courtroom battle over reefers is also reaching a danger point. Managers say for the first time they might not be able to keep operating Oregon’s only container terminal …” –

If Portland had installed our patented system, they wouldn’t be so loused up. For comparative purposes, we asked an accounting firm about five years ago to show the financial benefits of our system in a theoretical 1 million TEU container terminal. This is what they came up with:

Annual Income …………………………………. $ 429,422,250
Stevedore Salaries @ $ 125,000 …………. 20,000,000
(160 well-paid longshoremen would capably operate our patented system.)
Union Incentive @ 4% ………………………. 17,176,900
(Our union contract would provide 4% of the annual gross to the labor unions, and would seat a number of union personnel on the Board of Governors in order to eliminate disagreements.)
Acreage Lease @ $ 10/container …………. 6,606,500
(660,650 was the estimated number of containers in a one million TEU operation.)
Miscellaneous expenses …………………….. 30,000,000

Total Out Flow …………………………………. $ 73,783,400
Net Annual Profit ……………………………… $ 355,638,850

[Now review our previous commentary and look at the other benefits this patented system provides.]