ATA asks for Biden's help in West Coast port labor talks

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) late last week called on the Biden administration to resolve labor negotiations between West Coast ports and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union that have been ongoing since May 2022.

The negotiations are "creating economic uncertainty, affecting freight flows and causing shipments to be diverted away from the West Coast, where import volumes recently fell to their lowest level since the 1980s," ATA officials said in a press release.

In a March 24 letter to President Joe Biden, 238 national, state and local trade associations asked the president to help the union and ports reach a new agreement. The previous agreement expired July 1, 2022, and little progress has been made on inking a new contract, association officials wrote. At that time, the same group of trade associations called upon the Biden administration to help resolve the negotiations.

"While we appreciate that the parties agreed not to engage in a strike or a lockout, we are aware of several instances of activities that have impacted terminal operations. We need the administration to ensure these activities do not continue or escalate," association officials wrote in the letter.