Nightmare In Ningbo
Labor unrest in China—somewhat
commonplace in 2014—flared white-hot as the Chinese port of Ningbo
was hit by strikes with thousands of truck drivers demonstrating. It all
spun a bit out of control last Thursday.
As usual, the dispute centered upon attempts
by truckers to raise salary and haulage rates. Right now operations are
now disrupted at the world's sixth busiest ocean port.
 Robin
B. Finke, Corporate Ocean Freight manager, EMO Trans, told FlyingTypers
on Friday:
“It is difficult to know when the
strike will officially be over, but we are seeing delays that are affecting
our customers.
“We’re taking this disruption
one step at a time as EMO dedicates itself to keeping our customers and
service partners aware of any service delays and changes in scheduled
arrival dates.”
Bonnie Xu, station leader for Ningbo at
logistics firm BDP International, told Reuters on Friday the strike was
preventing the company from delivering export containers into the port,
and import containers from being sent out to customers.
For the record, Ningbo handled 16.77 million
twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2013, an increase of 7 percent
from the previous year.
Geoffrey/Flossie |
