President Biden met with the heads of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, as well with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) to address delays and congestion across the transportation supply chain.
Namely, the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) will cooperate with the Port of Long Beach (POLB) in order to expand to 24/7 operations.
In fact, POLA will add new off-peak nighttime shifts and weekend hours, thus almost doubling its hours of operation. As for the ILWU, it said that its members are willing to work those extra shifts to add needed labour capacity.
What is more, large US companies will move cargo during nighttime hours, with six companies moving more than 3,500 additional containers per week at night through the end of the year.
By increasing the number of late-night hours of operation and opening up for less-crowded hours when the goods can move faster, today’s announcement has the potential to be a gamechanger
said President Biden.
The president also his commitment to strengthen US’s supply chains, adding that “if the private sector doesn’t step up, we’re going to call them out and ask them to act.”
Our goal is not only to get through this immediate bottleneck, but to address the longstanding weaknesses in our transportation supply chain that this pandemic has exposed
