Port Of NY/NJ Truckers Petition Federal Maritime Commission To Investigate Truck Detention Practices of Marine Terminals.

Business Editors

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 18, 2002

The Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers, Inc. today petitioned the Federal Maritime Commission to investigate "egregious unreasonable practices" of certain members of the New York Terminal Conference.

Specifically, the association refers to truck detention at three terminals, as well as rates, tariffs, charges and rules.

"This action has been a long time coming," said Jeffrey Alan Bader, Association President. "It negatively impacts our area in many ways. Goods get to market late and trucks waiting in line cause additional pollution factors."

"We are concerned that frustrated shippers and carriers may route through other ports greatly impacting the region's economy," he added. "Finally, waiting in line for two to four hours means that most truckers can only make one or two deliveries a day, rather than the four of five they should. They cannot make a living," said Dick Jones, Association Executive Director.

Mr. Jones noted that in recent days truckers have documented waiting times of up to four hours to pick up or discharge a single container or chassis. "This is unacceptable and bottlenecks world trade," he said.

The 30-page petition has been specifically directed at American Stevedoring, Inc., Port Newark Container Terminal, Universal Maritime Service Corp., and the New York Terminal Conference. Not mentioned in the action are two major terminals, Maher Terminals Inc. and Howland Hook Container Terminal, neither of which are members of the New York Terminal Conference. All terminals are in the Port Newark/Elizabeth area of New Jersey. Howland Hook is in Staten Island, NY.

Among several violations at issue, the following constitute those that are most significant:

-- Port congestion at the Port and the terminal's "manipulation" of entry to the terminal gate or "point of processing" results in excessive waiting time for trucks idling in the queue outside the terminal gate.

-- Terminals do not compensate truckers for the excessive queue waiting time outside the terminal gate, nor is this time combined with the waiting time inside the terminal in calculating Truck Detention Penalties.

-- Port congestion caused by the NYTC terminals results in excessive waiting time for truckers within the marine terminal.

-- Within the terminal, several Tariff provisions protect the NYTC terminals from having to pay Truck Detention Penalties to truckers by requiring the passage of excessive free time before the penalties begin to accrue.

-- Terminals require trucks at the Port to use off-site chassis depots or other off-site facilities, spending time that is excluded from the calculation of Truck Detention Penalties. This is despite the fact that the trucker must access such off-site facilities due to the terminal's failure to provide a road-ready chassis or container inside the terminal.

-- Following a dispute and arbitration concerning the payment of Truck Detention Penalties between some NYTC members and trucker members of the Bi-State, the NYTC members collectively retaliated by modifying the Tariff to effectively remove the provision subject of the dispute, thereby preventing reasonable Truck Detention Penalties from being paid to the truckers.

As a result, the members of the Bi-State are left holding the bag for the excessive cost of doing business at the port, both in terms of lost time and financial losses, the petition says. The excessive delay caused to trucks awaiting access to containers and equipment at the port causes inordinate delay in the delivery of cargo flowing through the port. Some of the attendant costs are inevitably passed on to the importing or exporting community, while trucking companies servicing the NY/NJ port are forced to absorb these costs. These burdens and costs are a direct result of the unjust and unreasonable practices and regulations of the NYTC members at the port. The petition further details the charges.

The Bi-State is comprised of more than 40 members, at least 80% of which are trucking companies servicing the port. The port handles approximately 34% of the U.S. volume of trade for a 10-state, 260-mile radius area. Trucking companies perform hundreds of daily pick-ups and deliveries, and a majority of these services are provided by the members of the Bi-State, the petition notes.

The members of the Bi-State are mostly small to medium-sized independent motor carriers. These truckers provide the local drayage to and from the immediate commercial zone and the immediate areas of the port on the one hand, and the MTOs contained within the port, on the other.

"It is the members of the Bi-State, their drivers, and their customers (the importers and exporters that utilize the port), which are most affected by the unreasonable and unjust practices of the NYTC and its members. Truckers and their drivers are seriously impacted financially because the excessive waiting time often results in a single transaction for the day. Oftentimes, such costs are prohibitive and cannot be absorbed by small trucking operations or independent owner-operators," the petition continues.

"Importers and exporters are impacted because, in the environment created by the terminals, truckers cannot offer competitive pricing for drayage. As a result of the unreasonable practices and regulations of the NYTC members, importers and exporters experience inordinate delays in receiving and delivering containers and other equipment. In short, the public interest is adversely affected by these practices and regulations by all the ill social effects of port congestion," it adds.

Port congestion remains an unresolved problem that affects truckers, importers and exporters, and the efficiency of the Port. Despite many efforts to attempt self-regulation by the NYTC members to resolve these problems, the port congestion issues remain at the Port. Notwithstanding, that truckers spend many hours waiting to accomplish the equipment and cargo interchanges, truckers are rarely compensated for these extraordinary delays in view of the unreasonable and unjust regulations in place at the NYTC terminals.

The Truck Detention regulations of the NYTC are clearly not intended to fairly compensate truckers or to mitigate port congestion. Truck Detention Penalty Tariff provisions as they are currently implemented, do not give any incentives for MTOs to provide efficient cargo and equipment flow. "In fact, the practices of the NYTC participating members with regard to Truck Detention constitute patently unjust and unreasonable practices and regulations," says the petition.

"Due to port congestion, individual drivers generally are not able to complete more than one transaction daily at the terminals" said Jones. "In fact, the Port Authority of NY & NJ, issued notices as a safety alert to all truckers' indicating special traffic patterns to be observed by the truckers."

Further, the Bi-State members have documented that at the PNCT during the last year, and longer, they estimate that for seven (7) out of every ten (10) trucking transactions for either delivery or receipt of containers, chassis equipment, or other cargo handling, their truckers must wait in the queue outside the terminal gate before reaching the processing gate. It has been their experience that the queue wait outside the processing gate is generally 30 to as many as five (5) hours, The Association contends the actions violate Section10(d)(1) of the Shipping Act of 1984, as amended by the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998 ("OSRA"), 46 U.S.C. app.ss.1709(d)(1) (the "Act" or the "Shipping Act") concerning activities in the New York/New Jersey Port District (the "Port").

Copy of the petition available on request. Mr. Bader is at [phone]. Attorney Carlos Rodriguez is at [phone].