Port of Ensenada benefits from U.S. port shutdown

BY MINERVA CANTO

The Orange County Register

October 5, 2002

ENSENADA, MEXICO - Bananas probably never looked so good to

the workers at the Port of Ensenada.

Usually a small, quiet port that receives two cargo ships a week, the facility

this past week burst to life with the arrival of thousands of boxes

of bananas and other shipments diverted from ports north of the border.

Workers in bright orange jumpsuits and hard hats ran throughout the

container yard directing truck traffic all day. Short-haul trucks arrived at

the terminal every few minutes. U.S. distributors worked out of makeshift

offices in their cars.

It was anything but business as usual at the Baja California port,

which is picking up some of the slack from 29 Western U.S. ports shut down

due to a labor dispute. The Pacific Maritime Association imposed a lockout

after it failed to reach a contract agreement with the union representing

10,500 U.S. workers. The maritime association wants to use more technology

to facilitate cargo processing, but negotiations have broken down because

the union wants to represent new technology jobs. The dispute is costing the

U.S. economy an estimated $2 billion a day.

Like ports in the eastern United States and Canada, Mexico is now

receiving some shipments originally bound for the West Coast. In Ensenada,

at least eight ships were scheduled to arrive by the end of the week,

forcing the port to operate 400 percent above its usual rate and taking in

more than 80 percent of its typical cargo.

"We've always been equipped to handle this type of traffic so we were

definitely ready and willing to do this kind of work," said Gonzalo Ortiz

Zamudio, general manager at the Ensenada International Terminal.

Ortiz concedes the U.S. lockout has provided them an opportunity to

shine that they hope lasts beyond the lockout period, but says he is not

oblivious to the damaging effects on the world economy.

"I really hope they resolve the dispute soon because, while this has

been good for us right now," he said, "in the long run, it's not going to be

good for anyone."

The privately-run Ensenada port, which is more accustomed to greeting

passenger ships than cargo ships, is tiny compared to those in Long Beach or

Los Angeles, accepting ships shorter than about 800 feet. The typical

container ship can exceed 1,000 feet long.

But as the nearest open port to its counterparts in Southern

California, some companies such as Dole and Chiquita have discovered it's a

viable way around the U.S. port lockdown.

"It appeared to be the best alternative as the other Western ports are

all closed," said Chiquita spokesman Michael Mitchell.

Even though the Ensenada port does not have refrigerated facilities,

Chiquita took steps to maintain the freshness of 180,000 boxes of bananas

that arrived from the southern coast of Guatemala and are bound for grocery

stores throughout the western United States. The bananas, shipped in

refrigerated vessels, will be transported across the U.S. border via

refrigerated trailers.

Some shipments going further south in Mexico are being shipped by

railroad. Suppliers will not face additional tariffs even though it must

pass through two countries. Mexican tariffs do not apply because the cargo

will not be sold in Mexico, said Noel Murray, director of the Schmid Center

for International Business at Chapman University in Orange.

The Ensenada port has other limitations. Port administrators have

turned down shipments coming in on larger vessels. Even so, the few

additional shipments at the Ensenada port have boosted profits and

paychecks.

Dockworker Manuel Perez, taking a short break during a 20-hour work

shift, said he was looking forward to the extra money he was earning from

three straight shifts of working in the container yards.

"Well, I don't even know why the (U.S labor) dispute happened," said

Perez, who usually works a daily eight-hour shift. "I imagine it must be

money. Whatever it is, it has been good for us."

Mexican dockworkers earn an average monthly pay of about $1,100, a

fraction of a U.S. dockworker's monthly salary of about $6,900.

The port, which provides jobs to about 2,500 of the 361,000 Ensenada

area residents, was temporarily employing additional workers.

Martin Ferreti Rodriguez, the local union representative for Sindicato

Progresista Justo Sierra de Trabajadores, dashed from the dockyard to the

offices at the International Terminal, the hub of activity, as he assessed

the need for additional employees to help out with a new shipment due to

arrive the following day.

The union, which usually represents 45 port workers, took on 60

additional people last week.

"We've hired them on a temporary basis, although we're hoping that

many of them will be able to stay on," Ferreti said. "We've called this the

`dry zone,' because there's hasn't been enough work but we're hoping that

will change with this, that companies will now see Ensenada as a place to

ship their goods."

Nearby, Francisco Solis stood near his short-haul truck waiting for a

shipment. A partner in Solis Transportation, a 20-year-old family trucking

business based in Ensenada, Solis worried about the effect on his U.S.

counterparts. "This has been very good for us. We've had more work than ever

this week," Solis said. "But in the long term, it will hurt the truckers in

the United States and that's not good."