President Biden announced brokering a deal Wednesday to allow the Port of Los Angeles to operate 24 hours a day to ease the struggling supply chain straining stores nationwide – its effects brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and Delta Variant.
“The pandemic has led to a surge in e-commerce, with sales increasing 39% in the first quarter of 2021,” the Biden Administration said in a statement, adding that the jobs of 1,800 Southern California port workers were disrupted because of the pandemic earlier this year.
“These disruptions are not just happening here at home, but all around the world as COVID has led to global shutdowns and disruptions.”
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Biden said, are the point of entry for 40% of containers to the United States — and are on track to reach new highs in container traffic this year. For those facts, a decision to move both toward 24/7 operations was made.
For the last three weeks the Long Beach port has already been operating in that manner, according to the Associated Press.
As of Monday, there were 62 ships berthed at the two ports and 81 waiting to dock and unload, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California.
The L.A. port, longshoreman and several large retailers are working in conjunction to reduce the backlog, the AP reported. Already Walmart, Fedex and UPS have made commitments to unload during off-peak hours to allow for the L.A. port to operate nonstop.
Walmart: The nation’s largest retailer has committed to increasing nighttime hours by as much as 50% over the next few weeks.
FedEx: Committed to increase nighttime hours with changes to trucking and rail use to increase volume of containers it will move from the ports.
Target: The retailer already moves 50% of its containers at night, and has committed to increasing that number by 10% over the next three months to help ease congestion at the ports.
Samsung, The Home Depot and UPS have also committed to more 24/7 use of the ports. Across the six companies, the White House said more than 3,500 additional containers per week will be able to move at night through the end of 2021.
“At the Port of LA, goods move 25% faster at night than during the day,” the White House said. “These commitments will help unlock capacity in the rest of the system — including highways, railroads and warehouses, by reducing congestion during the day.’
The International Longshore and Warehouse union announced this week that its members are willing to work the extra shifts.
President Joe Biden is set to address the supply chain bottleneck and efforts to reduce them in a press conference Wednesday at 11:20 a.m. local time. Watch here:
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