European and American drivers deny labor shortage: ports are the culprit

Previously, many media in Europe and the United States reported that the severe shortage of truck drivers has aggravated the difficulties of the supply chain.

However, many freight companies and truck drivers in the United States have raised objections to this, believing that the cause of supply chain problems lies in the low efficiency of ports.

Several freight company executives told the media that they are actually laying off employees due to port congestion, equipment and efficiency issues , and coordination chaos .

A Truckers said the Oakland International Container Terminal website has been down since Monday , so freight companies cannot get a list of ships receiving exports. "They ( the port) want us to fly into their terminal blindly, " Bill Aboudi , president of A Truckers, told the media .

Aboudi said his drivers sometimes have to wait four to six hours for a truck to pull a container each day. Before the supply chain crisis , his drivers averaged three to four round trips a day .

Aboudi believes that as terminal operators push for automation, a small glitch in the system could keep crane operators and truck drivers immobilized. Terminal operators don’t manage the workforce properly, and “often it’s the dockworkers and truck drivers who are forced to wait because of the terminal operator’s mistakes . ”

The president of a Southern California drayage company said he had to lay off some of his employees and drivers in the past two weeks to stay afloat . "We have a lot of work and customers, but the port is not allocating containers to drivers correctly or in a timely manner . "

Before the pandemic , the executive said he had eight drivers. As online shopping surged , he expanded his business , with 18 drivers at most . “If the port was more efficient and released my 200 containers a week, I wouldn’t have to lay off any workers , but the port can only release about 130 to 140 containers a week . ”

While he and other drayage companies expanded operations to accommodate growing e-commerce, California’s ports and terminal operators had no long-term infrastructure plans in place to handle the surge in container traffic .

“I think these issues are solvable, but it takes strong leadership and getting port drivers involved in the discussion so they can voice their frustrations about the inefficiencies at the terminals to get there , ” said Joe Rajkovacz, head of the Trucking Association .

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