The Oakland International Container Terminal closed on Wednesday due to the protests over California's gig worker law.
There are some vessel labor operations underway at the Port of Oakland, but they are shut down for trucks as well.
This is the third day of protests by truck drivers against California's gig worker labor law. A two-year legal stay was lifted when the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case.
There are some exceptions in the law when it comes to reclassifying independent contractors. Most of the truck drivers in California are owner-operators and they are worried about their future. An estimated 70,0000 people who own and drive their own trucks would fall under this law because they don't want to become employees or members of a union.
The Port of Oakland in Oakland, California, US, on Thursday, July 14, 2022. Truckers servicing some of the US’s busiest ports are staging protests as state-level labor rules that change their employment status begin to go into effect, creating another choke point in stressed US supply chains. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesThe protests are the largest of their kind.
Bill Aboudi is the owner of a trucking company. There hasn't been contact with the governor's office yet. The governor doesn't seem to care about taking American workers' rights away. The right to operate their own trucks has been taken away from them. They have insurance. They can do that.
The governor's office was contacted by CNBC asking when enforcement of the law would begin and if truckers could stay independent. The Director of the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development stated in an email to CNBC that with the federal courts rejecting the trucking industry's appeals, it's time to move forward.
The governor's office wrote in an email to CNBC, "We also suspect the landscape may change (independent drivers becoming their own authority and/ or then existing firms becoming an employee/driver model)."
The Port of Oakland is home to over 2,100 trucks. A wide range of items, from Australian wine and meat to aluminum and furniture from South Korea, can be imported from it.
Some longshoremen were forced to stay away from the crowds because of the protests. If dockworkers feel unsafe, they can refuse entry to the terminal.
When conditions at the terminals present a risk, the workers stood by on health and safety.
The lack of longshoremen at the Port of Oakland caused the terminals to be closed. After arriving at the SSA terminal, some ILWU members chose not to enter the building. SSA decided to close its operations due to lack of labor.
Both the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association have pledged to not strike or have a laborlock out if a new contract is not reached by the end of the month.
Waterside operations are under way at the Port of Oakland. Depending on the terminal, $$$[y gate activity is either minimal or shut down.
As a result of the protest, productivity has decreased and there are rising wait times for containers.
Multiple sources tell CNBC that the protests at the Port of Oakland will go on through Friday.
The impact of last week's protest at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach was not as bad as in Oakland. More than seven times the trucking capacity of Oakland can be reached through these ports. Even with their enormous size, the ports of LA and Long Beach have been severely congested and any trucker disruption would only make things worse.
The rail wait times at the West Coast ports are very long. Less than 40% of long-dwelling containers at the ports were trucking containers. The land capacity at the Port of LA has been reduced because of the container pile-up. Delays in the pick up of containers would add to the congestion.
Container prices go up when boxes are taken out of the supply chain for reuse.
The Freightos Baltic Dry Index is one of the data providers of the CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map.
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