National Rail Services

Following extensive flooding in South Australia and Western Australia, Pacific National who operate rail services between Australia’s East and West Coasts, have advised that some 400kms of railway rack needs to be replaced on the cross country services.

This has severely disrupted all services and could be some time before the rail line is again open to service.

For those clients affected by the service outage, GPSM are pursuing enquiries with coastal sea operators to try and find a solution to the current delays.

Our team will keep individual clients updated as soon as possible.

Current Australian Port Status

Below is the current status of average vessel delays and berthing times around Australia this week:

  • The delays indicated below are for this week’s vessels only and can change frequently depending on labor absenteeism / Covid related delays, final productivity at the terminal and weather.
  • DPW Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane continue to face congestion and delays due to all services arriving late and clashing caused by weather impacts overseas and recent local weather.
  • Due to increased COVID testing and isolation requirements terminals are facing labor shortages which is impacting vessel operations.
  • DPW Fremantle facing extensive delays of up to 2 days due to vessel bunching.
  • Patrick Fremantle facing ~ 2 days of delays due to vessel bunching.
  • Patrick Melbourne is facing severe congestion and delays of 10 – 12 days due to vessel bunching & COVID related labor shortages.
  • Hutchison Sydney experiencing congestion (Approx. 3 days) due to all services arriving late and bunching and weather.
  • Average delays at VICT now approximately 3 – 4 days .
  • Due to upsurge in Covid testing & Positive cases DPW Sydney now experiencing 10 days delays to vessels berthing.
  • DPW are currently facing ~c10% reduction in the workforce daily.
  • Patrick Terminals operation at 50% capacity .
  • NSW ( ~ 30,000) and Victoria (~ 23,000) are recording large amounts of COVID positive cases daily.
  • Brisbane (~ 18,000) is also beginning to feel the effect of a surge in Positive COVID cases.
  • This is putting immense pressure on labor procurement and additional delays are now being experienced.
  • Terminals are continually remapping schedules to take into account these latest figures.

Chinese New Year Holidays 2022

Just a reminder that Chinese New Year holidays will commence from 31st January, 2022 until 6th February, 2022 and we ask all clients to ensure they receive shipment documents from suppliers in advance of the break.

Many factories will close for longer periods as most workers will return to their home towns during the holidays.

Trucking services across China are already struggling to cope with the volume of cargo and containers as factories try to move as many orders as possible prior to the holiday period.

NZ and USA ports update

NZ Port Congestion and Trucking Delays

Our NZ agent, Tri-Star, have provided us with the latest update on Auckland Port Issues as follows:

We would like to bring to your attention the ongoing challenges associated with capacity and congestion at Auckland port, that also impacts on container truckers operating in Auckland.

We must make you aware, several container transports companies have started applying congestion fees to all import/export container cartage, due to the significant delays they are experiencing. Across both Ports of Auckland and all empty container depots there is significantly more wait-time for these truckers, ranging from 30 minutes up to 4 hours for single pick-ups or deliveries. There is no consistency between shipping lines, location, or timing for these delays, however many truckers have already communicated the need to recover the associated costs immediately.

Truckers who have decided already to implement this surcharge will be reviewing this periodically, until waiting times have reduced consistently and we will continue to monitor this closely.

So far, we have received notification from truckers with varying congestion surcharges of up to $95.00 + GST per container, (20’ or 40’)at this time and the earliest of these will apply from 15th November 2021, dependent on trucker.

Unfortunately, we will need to pass this added cost on, relative to the trucker used to handle the delivery.

 

USA Port Situation and Booking Issues

 

USA ports continue to experience exceptional volume throughput on import and export containers, the situation is not improving as the Xmas rush continues to jam up ports, inland terminals and rail networks.

The volume of containers moving has also put a major strain on trucking resources right across the country with not only a shortage of drivers but also a huge shortage of chassis (trailers) and empty containers.

In another major blow to Oceania traffic, many shipping lines have started blocking all new bookings to Australia and New Zealand until further notice, Hapag-Lloyd and Hamburg-SUD lines being the latest lines involved.

They have now joined a large number of transhipment line services via Asia that have also blocked bookings to Oceania in recent weeks, with the likes of OOCL, COSCO, YML, Evergreen to name a few that are no longer accepting bookings to our area.

GPSM will keep all clients updated as soon as further information comes to hand.

Delays Continue for document assessment by Bio Securities

The department continues to experience high volumes of entry lodgements. The department has implemented a new queuing process in its COLS system to identify and prioritise entries. We anticipate that these delays will continue while we continue to experience unprecedented numbers of lodgements, and while we settle arrangements to separate and prioritise lodgements .

Patrick Applies to Terminate Agreement with MUA

Patrick Terminals has lodged an application with the Fair Work Commission to terminate its Enterprise Agreement with the MUA.

The agreement is no longer fit for purpose, as it contains a number of operational restrictions that have limited the ability of Patrick to meet customer requirements at a time of congestion in global supply chains.

Patrick has been negotiating with its employees and the MUA since February 2020 to seek to address these restrictions and has held more than 70 meetings in pursuit of a new enterprise agreement.

The MUA has launched more than 220 industrial actions against Patrick Terminals nationally during the negotiation period. This has intensified recently with further action launched at all four of Patrick’s terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle for the coming days and weeks.

Michael Jovicic, CEO Patrick Terminals said, “Enough is enough. We have presented the MUA with an attractive national offer on top of their already very generous agreement including a 10% pay increase across four years coupled with protections addressing concerns over the use of casuals and job security.

“Negotiations have been ongoing for close to two years and frankly there seems to be no agreement to be had, particularly in Sydney, where the union is still demanding we hire from a selected list of family and friends.

“We have today lodged an application with the FWC for an order terminating our current agreement.

“We are at the end of the road and need to have an agreement with our employees that works for our customers, and that allows us to remain competitive in the future market.”

Terminating the agreement will allow Patrick to recruit and train employees without needing the agreement of the Union and remove any “friends and family” Union imposed restrictions.

“The world has changed, and we need to be able to recruit and promote the best people for the job rather than be hamstrung by antiquated Union-led processes and policies that restrict our business,” Mr Jovicic said.

“Our market share and business operations have suffered due to this relentless industrial campaign by the MUA and their insidious ‘jobs for the boys’ stance. We need to provide our customers with operational certainty and that includes a workable agreement with our employees. Our customers are demanding that we take action to resolve this situation.”

Patrick Terminals has guaranteed not to change leave entitlements, salaries and other rates of pay that are applicable under the Enterprise Agreement for employees for a period of 6 months from the date of any termination order, probably next year.

Patrick Terminals has requested an expedited hearing of this application with the Fair Work Commission.

If you have any questions relating to this notification, please speak to your Patrick commercial representative.

 

Regards,

Patrick Terminals

Further Industrial Action at Sydney and Melbourne Terminals

Patrick Terminals has received notifications for industrial action at our Patrick Terminals – Melbourne and Patrick Terminals – Sydney AutoStrad. These notifications are listed below in bold .

After weeks of significant labour availability due to the impact of COVID-19 cases in Melbourne, the MUA has now taken to issue the Melbourne terminal with two weeks of continuous rolling stoppages and work bans for the first two weeks of November that will significantly impact the ability of the terminal to recover.

The MUA continues to launch further damaging industrial action despite ongoing discussions occurring with the National office on a near-daily basis in an attempt to finalise the Enterprise Agreement.

Michael Jovicic, CEO Patrick Terminals said, “We have requested on multiple occasions that the MUA bargain without continuing their economically damaging industrial action.

“Now issuing 19 new industrial notifications of rolling 12-hour strike actions every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the coming fortnight at our already struggling Melbourne terminal is frankly bewildering. Our terminal is still working to recover from reduced labour availability due to recent COVID-19 cases and this industrial action will result in significant delays.

“Plus we now have a 24-hour stoppage in Sydney on Melbourne Cup Day.

“We call on the MUA once again to accept the generous offer on the table and move forward with just getting back to work.”

 

Terminal Operations Update

Patrick Terminals – Sydney AutoStrad

  • The current delays at the Sydney terminal are on average 1 day and are forecast to increase with the current and notified industrial action for Melbourne Cup Day.

 

Patrick Terminals – Brisbane AutoStrad

  • The current delays at the Brisbane terminal are up to 5 days and are forecast to increase with the current industrial action.

Patrick Terminals – Fremantle AutoStrad

  • The terminal is being impacted by industrial action with vessel delays now averaging 8.5 days.

 

Patrick Terminals – Melbourne AutoStrad

  • The terminal is presently operating with a 4 days delay due to reduced labour availability resulting from COVID cases and close contact isolation requirements. Delays are forecast to increase with notified industrial action.

 

Patrick Terminals continues to work with customers to minimize the impact of this industrial action by the MUA. Our focus continues to be on supporting the Australian supply chain with an efficient and effective service that supports Australia’s economic recovery.

Please reach out to your Client Services Manager if you would like any further details.

 

Regards,

Patrick Terminals

Demonstrators block major Italian ports in protest of mandatory Covid health pass

Major ports in Italy have been blocked all weekend as workers strike against mandatory vaccines and vaccine passports. Italy made Covid-19 health passes mandatory for all workers from Friday. The so-called Green Pass confirms the holder is vaccinated against, recently recovered from, or recently tested negative for Covid-19.

The largest demonstrations were at the port of Trieste, where thousands of dockworkers and residents joined the action to pressure the Italian government to abandon the Green Pass policy. Protesters have also been blocking the port of Genoa for three days and two nights and similar actions were reported nationwide.

Port workers, drivers and citizens in Trieste have threatened that if the Green Pass obligation in the workplace is not withdrawn, activity will come to a halt in the port where 40% of the workers are reportedly unvaccinated. Police have also warned all dockworkers that they will forcibly evacuate the port if the protests continue.

Concessions offered by Italian authorities have so far been rejected by port worker representatives and the Italian government has not indicated that it is likely to reverse its decision on the Green Pass requirement.