Just wanted to make you aware of an additional charge that will go into effect on May 25th.
As you know, the ILWU is starting negotiations mid next month and we are all gearing up for what may be the hardest negotiations yet to come by the end of the 2nd quarter. The FINAL date to tie the contract is July 1st if I’m not mistaken.
Carriers are going to impose “labor negotiation” “work stoppage” fees per the attached. As you know, we use MOL quite often, especially for Unicharm, Shintoa and Vox. I will confirm if APL/OOCL/Evergreen intend to impose the same as well. Once I have that info, I will relay ASAP.
I’ve informed my Tokyo office who should in turn relay this info to Unicharm since freight is collect.
Please make Shintoa/Vox aware of the possibilities that we *might* get charged these fees IF the union decides to strike. I will also keep you posted on the situation with the terminals, but please recommend to your clients to export as much as they need to cover at least a few weeks extra on top of what they are moving now. It will save everyone a headache and a lot of money come June-July.
Please let me know if you have any questions.