The International Chamber of Shipping, a coalition of truck drivers, seafarers, and airline workers, recently warned heads of state at the United Nations General Assembly that if restrictive COVID policies don’t change and freedom of movement isn’t restored to transportation workers, a supply-chain collapse is imminent.

Industry leaders representing some 65 million transport workers asked…heads of government to “take meaningful and swift action to resolve the crisis now.”…

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On the West Coast, as of Sept. 30, the Marine Exchange of Southern California said, the situation was “essentially status quo at elevated levels … 30 vessels are in drift areas, 145 total vessels of all types were in port.”

Earlier this week 62 ships were waiting out at sea…In August, 76 container ships were in port, 46 were at anchor, and 29 at berth, the Marine Exchange reported. In July, the number anchored off the coast was 33.

The “normal number of container ships at anchor is between zero and one,” the Marine Exchange said in July…

Despite major losses, the state’s seaports had not received state or federal relief until this year…

But the ports had to grapple with a range of problems prior to receiving federal aid. Laid-off California workers in this industry, as in others, earned more money on unemployment than working, as a result of California’s extended participation in the federal government’s enhanced unemployment benefits program. Hiring new employees proved challenging.

Another complication stemmed from a lack of commercial truck drivers. Fewer commercial truck drivers meant less options for 20- and 40- foot steel boxes of cargo to be picked up and delivered. With the state shutdown last year, many senior truck drivers retired, and classes through which younger drivers would normally get their licenses were postponed due to COVID restrictions.

Another problem stemmed from the state and port COVID-related safety measures that slowed the handling of each ship coming into port…

In Los Angeles, containers have been waiting nearly 16 days on average before they are unloaded, Bloomberg News reports. Although California port officials have extended operating hours to nights and weekends, delays, especially at the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, “are expected to continue for the remainder of the year.”

The longer the wait, the longer delivery dates get pushed back, and the cost of transportation increases — passing on the increased costs to consumers…

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(Excerpt from Just the News. Article by Bethany Blankley. Photo Credit: Zachary Pearson- U.S. Navy via Getty Images).