Japanese McDonald’s chains rationing French fries, Washington apples spoiling before they leave the state and imports of retail goods reaching docks but not reaching shelves — those are some of the impacts from union and port disagreements along the West Coast.
Christmas trees, too, were held up at ports as small business owners and family growers attempted to export them to customers overseas.
Pacific Maritime Association, which represents more than 70 multinational ocean carriers and maritime companies in contract negotiations with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, has accused the union of intentionally working slower as a contract bargaining tool. The union denies the accusation.
The Port of Grays Harbor has not experienced any unexpected delays, Deputy Executive Director Leonard Barnes said on Friday.
While there have been no impacts to the local port, ports within the state have seen delays and state Sen. Michael Baumgartner of Spokane is launching an investigation into the event saying, “The slowdown put Christmas in the crosshairs.”
“It looks like the longshore union played hardball with the ports to win an advantage at the bargaining table, but it went too far when it targeted the people who grow our Christmas trees,” Baumgartner said in a press release.
Christmas trees are big business. According to the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association (an organization supporting growers in the Northwest), Washington had the fifth largest Christmas tree harvest nationwide in 2013, with an estimated 2.3 million trees. Leading the industry was Oregon with 6.4 million trees, followed by North Carolina with 3.5 million and Michigan with 3 million.
In Washington, Kitsap, Lewis, Mason and Thurston counties produced the most Christmas trees.
Wholesale profits netted about $35 million for Washington’s 250 growers, and some $110 million for 700 growers in Oregon.
Most of the trees are either Douglas fir or noble fir (47 and 45 percent respectively).
The union contract expired on July 1 and some port officials say union members soon began working at half-speed at 29 ports along the West Coast. The union says congestion at the ports is caused by changes relating to truck chassis, a shortage of truck drivers and a shortage of rail car capacity. Any slowdown, the union has said, is related to safety and not contract negotiations.
Tillman Christmas Trees
Whatever the cause — intentional slowdown or port congestion — caught in the chaos was local grower John Tillman who, with his wife Carol, owns Tillman Christmas Trees. Their home farm is in Satsop.
Tillman Christmas Trees exports were stuck on the docks at the Port of Tacoma.
More than 2,400 of their trees packed in nine shipping containers were set to leave during the first week of November and arrive in Hong Kong before Thanksgiving Day.
A customer in Hong Kong has been ordering the trees from the family business for 10 years. The trees are set up and decorated in malls and stores throughout Hong Kong. The longer the trees waited at the Port, the later they would arrive in Hong Kong and the less the stores would want to invest the money, time and energy decorating for Christmas.
When Port of Tacoma operations slowed, the containers waited at the Port, with officials telling the Tillmans the trees were delayed a day. After the first few delays, the family-owned business started to worry.
“We were just sitting there on the computer watching containers at the Port, waiting to see if our container would go on a ship that day,” Tillman said.
The trees had been packed in refrigerated containers with crushed ice blown over them before being sealed, but the Tillmans and their customer wondered how long the trees would survive.
Tillman Christmas Trees has been selling trees wholesale since 1988, shipping the product throughout the country and internationally. Most of their product is shipped to California, Texas, Florida, Tennessee and select markets in Seattle and Tacoma.
The company isn’t alone.
According to the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association, about 92 percent of Pacific Northwest Christmas Trees are exported out of the region.
California accounts for a bulk of the customers, taking on an estimated 45 percent of the harvest. Some 16 percent end up in Mexico.
Overseas markets include Japan, China, Hong Kong, Philippines, as well as U.S. territories Guam and Puerto Rico.
This year, the trees were stuck at the Port of Tacoma for the first year ever, and the Tillmans were frustrated.
“There was nobody on our side saying, ‘we’ve got to get this resolved,’ ” Tillman said.
Carol Tillman wrote a blog post expressing the business’ frustration and the post made it on the Port’s website and put the spotlight on the held trees.
“It wasn’t until she put a voice to the containers that they started moving,” John Tillman said.
The trees arrived in Hong Kong on Dec. 8 and, luckily, they had maintained their quality throughout the delay. In the end, the customer was pleased with the quality, but that’s not to say the delay didn’t put a strain on the business relationship.
“Because it was out of our control and his control, it could affect future sales,” Tillman said. “This isn’t a great ending to the story because everybody expected this to be catastrophic, but even though it was a good year, where does that put us and all the small business growers next year. Both parties — the ports and the longshoremen — if they can’t work through these things, then we’re in the same boat next time.”
Hearing
Though port and union officials couldn’t set aside their differences in support of growers, the state senator, who is the chairman of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, has stepped forward.
“People think this is about big shippers and big unions and big holiday sales at big-box stores,” Baumgartner said. “But this is really about the little guy. Think of the Christmas-tree growers. It takes years to grow a tree, and once you cut it you need to ship it fast.”
Baumgartner not only wants to find out what happened, but he aims to prevent it from happening in the future, so business owners like the Tillmans can export with the confidence that their ports will move the product forward.
“We have to remember there are people involved here,” Baumgartner said. “These growers aren’t symbols. They’re human beings. Whatever happens at the bargaining table with the current contract, we need to make sure this never happens again.”
Baumgartner is planning a hearing for the 2015 legislative session to examine the impacts caused to the Washington economy throughout the slowdown.
John Tillman appreciates Baumgartner’s active stance.
“It pleases me to hear there are people still trying to figure out just what happened,” Tillman said.
“... We take a lot of pride in being able to take an American product and ship it out, but to feel like so many people turned their back on a resolution was so disheartening,” he said.
Tillman Christmas Trees operates 175 acres with about 200,000 trees on eight farms in Satsop, Rochester and the Mossyrock area.
The Tillmans sold 15,000 trees this year, a “reasonable year,” he said, and they’re fairly certain they didn’t lose their longtime customer in the fallout.
“If he’s willing to buy the trees, I’m going to be willing to sell them,” Tillman said. “I haven’t asked him yet, but he hasn’t indicated he won’t.”
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