Struggling for months to reach new labor agreement
Here in the United States, business people are asking the federal government to intervene in a labor dispute. It's not with their own workers; it's with dock workers and shipping companies on the West Coast. They've been struggling for months to reach new labor agreement. Now shippers are accusing dockworkers of deliberately slowing their work. The speed at which they do their jobs affects congestion at several ports, including the nation's largest port complex in Southern California. NPR's Nathan Rott was on the waterfront at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: To get an idea of the congestion, and to get a birds-eye-view of it, try the Marine Exchange in San Pedro, California.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hyundai-Tokyo traffic. So you'll be needing an outside anchorage. What is your deepest draft?
ROTT: Think of it like an air traffic control for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Maximum draft is 12.7 meters.
ROTT: The Marine Exchange sits on top of a hill, overlooking the 16 square miles of cranes and shipping containers that make up the nation's busiest port complex just to the South. You can see Catalina Island to the west and more than a dozen container, tanker and charter ships in between.