Pictured L-R: John Cushing, PierPass; Karen Vellutini, Devine Intermodal; John Berge, PMSA; Jean Banker, Port of Oakland; Ralph Reynosa, Port of Oakland; Scott Taylor, GSC; Jean-Marc Sorhondo, Ports America; Miguel Silva, Horizon Freight.
What is going on up in Vancover? We wondered the same thing so, we went to check it out…what can we learn, what can we adopt, what we can do better?
As a recap, last February, drivers went on strike in Vancouver effectively shutting down terminal operations for about a week. The end result was a 14-point plan consisting of a port approved truck licensing system, mandatory terminal appointments, delay charges for terminal transactions taking longer than 90 minutes, government defined driver pay scale, a study of the market’s supply/demand ratios and the installation of GPS on all trucks serving the port.
For the past year, the plan has been implemented, studied and refined. The supply/demand review has been completed, and as result the port authority reduced the number of approved licensed motor carriers and eliminated 600 drivers from the fleet serving the port. Hence, the latest round of driver unrest and protests in the Vancouver area.