Shipping

Hoping to get the City Council to recognize their grievances against shipping companies at Los Angeles Harbor, more than 3,000 truckers drove Downtown from San Pedro on Tuesday in an all-day convoy that stretched 30 miles, police said. In what they called a "Convoy for Justice," cargo haulers looped around City Hall with their diesel trucks and automobiles, hoping to gain council support in their fight to win recognition as members of the Communication Workers of America.

Hoping to get the City Council to recognize their grievances against shipping companies at Los Angeles Harbor, more than 3,000 truckers drove Downtown from San Pedro on Tuesday in an all-day convoy that stretched 30 miles, police said. In what they called a "Convoy for Justice," cargo haulers looped around City Hall with their diesel trucks and automobiles, hoping to win council support in their fight to win recognition as members of the Communication Workers of America.

Hundreds of times a year, workers in the package delivery business find steaming, dripping, flaming or disintegrated cardboard boxes piled in their trucks or riding toward them on conveyor belts. Shippers' labels don't always warn what's inside. Yet these misbegotten packages may hold a grisly inventory of potentially harmful cargoes--auto batteries, human tissue and blood, acids, corrosive substances, pesticides, gasoline or radioactive materials.

Dianna Dapkins thought the Internet would be the perfect place to find a rare Croatian wine that her local merchants in rural Shelburne, Mass., don't stock. Sure enough, K&L Wine Merchants, an Internet retailer that also has stores in Hollywood and San Francisco, sells the Plenkovic Zlatan Plavac Barrique for $34.99. Dapkins clicked on the wine to buy it but said she was stunned when the website would not let her complete the sale. "It is really frustrating," she said.

The struggling U.S. economy has claimed some victims that few Americans have heard of. Copenhagen-based A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, the world's largest ocean shipping line, plans to lay off as many as 3,000 of its container division's 25,000 workers, in part because of a slowdown in U.S. trade in 2007. "The U.S. situation is a problem for us and for the entire industry," said Eivind Kolding, chief executive of Maersk Line, the company's container shipping division.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach remained the nation's busiest seaport complex for cargo containers in 2007, even though they saw a decline in traffic for the first time in at least 20 years. But in a shift, exports grew as the dollar's declining value helped U.S. companies ride into new markets and to record-breaking sales. One of those benefiting was Los Angeles Grain Terminal in Long Beach, a 49-year-old company that packs cargo containers with grain from the Midwest for sale in Asia.

Miguel had more reason than usual to be anxious as he drove his aging big rig out of the Port of Los Angeles' bustling China Shipping Terminal. By his own admission, his 24-year-old truck was dangerously overloaded. The suspension was shot, the tires nearly bald. Over his CB radio, other drivers barked warnings that the California Highway Patrol had set up several checkpoints nearby.

At Southern California's twin ports, there is a growing feeling that the economic tide has begun to turn. Imports are down. Experts expect another year of little or no cargo growth in 2008. And other harbors are getting serious about luring business away from Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's largest seaport complex, and other West Coast ports.

The nation's busiest seaport could lose at least 3% of its cargo container business if it adopts a controversial proposal requiring shipping companies to employ the thousands of short-haul truck drivers who work on a contractual basis, a new study says. The analysis, conducted by Boston Consulting Group, said that "substantial diversions" of the Los Angeles port's business probably would shift to the neighboring port of Long Beach or to other harbors. The port moved 8.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Tuesday unveiled a $19-million plan to persuade shippers to burn cleaner fuel when vessels are near the California coast, a move expected to slash local air pollution by 11%. Cargo ships, some of which can emit more diesel exhaust per day than 12,000 automobiles, are responsible for much of the air pollution in the region.