ILWU Ratifies 6-Year Contract

(Read more on Supply Chain Dive)

With a 75% majority, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) ratified a new 6-year contract with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) this week. The contract will retroactively start on July 1, 2022 (when the previous contract expired) and extends through July 1, 2028. The ratification comes at the end of a 13-month process that included labor actions, fears of a strike that could have severely hampered the U.S. supply chain, and multiple rounds of negotiations between the two parties. The contract affects 22,000 dock workers at 29 ports up and down the U.S. West Coast.

Chatbots Are Trying to Figure Out Where Your Shipments Are

(Read more on The Wall Street Journal)

Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November of last year, more companies have started investigating ways to use Generative AI, the technology that powers this and other recently launched tools, in their customer service and other public-facing aspects of their business. Artificial intelligence has been making its way into the backend of the industry for several years already, but the ability of generative AI to quickly parse data and respond to humans in a human-like manner has companies looking at ways to lighten the workload on their external-facing employees as well.

Viewpoint: It’s Time for Shippers Using Panama Canal To Make Decisions

(Read more on FreightWaves)

Despite being bumped from major headlines, the congestion at the Panama Canal, caused by an ongoing drought in the region, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Looking at the numbers makes it clear that the time to make decisions about how to route shipments from Asia to the U.S. East Coast, and vice versa, has arrived.

Trucks, Trailers, Tonnage: What Transport Data Says About the State of the Industry

(Read more on Trucking Dive)

Using the latest data from DAT Freight & Analytics, this ongoing post was updated this week (Aug. 31, 2023) to reflect the current state of the trucking industry in the U.S. market in the run-up to the Labor Day holiday.

France-Italy Road and Rail Freight Chaos After Alpine Rockfall

(Read more on The LoadStar)

Traffic on a major connecting route between France and Italy is closed after a rockfall weakened an overhanging cliff face. The A43 motorway in the Savoie region that includes the Fréjus alpine tunnel, used by haulage companies traveling between the two countries will remain closed for the foreseeable future. The closest alternative route is the Mount Blanc Tunnel, where traffic has nearly doubled, causing major backups and delays to cross-border traffic.