L'Australie va-t-elle rater sa réforme portuaire ? La décision d'une des plus importantes entreprises de manutention australienne Patrick Stevedores, de licencier d'emblée 1.400 dockers (voir LL du 9/4), suite à une grève déclenchée par les dockers à Port Botany, a eu un effet de détonateur dans le conflit qui oppose gouvernement et manutentionnaires au puissant syndicat MUA (Maritime Union of Australia). Côté syndical, on évoque une conspiration menée par le gouvernement, les agriculteurs et Patrick Stevedores et l'on commence à enregistrer çà et là des appels au boycott. Ainsi, une grève de 24 h était annoncée dans le secteur industriel de Victoria en signe de solidatité avec les dockers licenciés. Des manifestations de soutien ont eu lieu dans plusieurs villes: Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne et Perth. Enfin, l'ITWF menace de combattre toute tentative de briser le monopole syndical sur les quai australiens et envisage de boycotter tout chargeur ayant recours à des dockers non syndiqués.
Les Etats-Unis ont renoncé à l'open sky avec la France Le mercredi 8 avril, les négociations aériennes entre les Etats-Unis la France viennent de connaître un dénouement présenté à Paris comme très positif. La formule "Open Sky" (ciel ouvert) n'a pas été retenue. Les possibilités de vols en "5ème liberté" restent limitées pour le moment. Le mécanisme de règlement des éventuels conflits est présenté comme très positif.
Les Etats-riverains de la Meuse joignent leurs forces pour la maîtrise du fleuve A l'heure où les ministres compétents de la France, des Pays-Bas, de la Flandre et de la Wallonie signaient le plan d'action Inondations-Meuse, une pré-alerte de crue était décrétée. Quelques jours de pluies abondantes ont en effet provoqué un régime d'inondations sur le fleuve.
It's Calvin Klein jeans, meat, computer parts, mainframes, television sets and heaven knows what else. Theft is cargo's dirty-but-not-so-little secret. One FBI official estimated that cargo theft is a $6 billion-a-year industry but added, "The reality is probably higher." Around the world, cargo thieves are getting rich but the crime wave in cargo doesn't get the same attention as drug trafficking or murder. Miami, for instance, has 80 U.S. customs agents assigned to narcotics - and four to cargo theft. Approximately 80 percent of all cargo theft involves inside information. A special examination of how cargo theft robs us all is this week's cover story.
The hottest ticket in Washington is a seat on the House-Senate conference committee that will reconcile differences between the $217 billion House highway authorization and the $214 billion Senate version. Everybody wants a say in how the money will be spent. Although President Clinton has threatened a veto because it busts the balanced budget agreement, American Trucking Associations President Walter B. McCormick Jr. predicts a final bill will emerge in early May - with the president's signature. Congressional leaders are searching for ways to offset spending to fit the highway bill under the budget cap. At least $26 billion in spending cuts will have to be found over the next six years to fit the highway bill in the budget.
Walter B. McCormick Jr., new president of the American Trucking Associations, is trying to distance himself from some of the practices of his predecessor, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue. McCormick, who already has cut 10 percent of ATA's staff, charged that ATA had become "aloof" and "out of touch" with the trucking industry's day-to-day affairs. He promised a "lean, mean" operation that was sharply focused on improving members' bottom lines.
Lufthansa Cargo's service revolution started on April 1. The airline tossed out its old service manual and rate books and ushered in a whole new set of time-definite services and guarantees, along with a whole new set of rates. Some forwarders have embraced the plan, saying it is exactly where the industry should be heading. Others aren't so sure. Without major changes at the airports where the airlines operate and education at the handler level, no marketing plans will be bold enough to start a revolution.
Top officials of the nation's Class 1 railroads, along with the newly installed interim head of the Association of American Railroads and a supporting cast of their top lieutenants, all sat through the greater part of 16 hours of Surface Transportation Board hearings listening to shipper after shipper complain about their lousy service, high rates, poor car supply, arrogance and lack of communication. The attentiveness of million-dollar-a-year executives to the plaints of shippers provides one measure of the seriousness with which the industry now takes the prospect that the Surface Transportation Board or Congress itself will respond to long-smoldering complaints of shippers fanned by the UP service crisis, and change the rules of the game.
Some winners are emerging as a result of the Union Pacific's embargo on most Mexico-bound rail traffic through Laredo - in the maritime industry. Trans-Gulf Intermodal Freight and its partners, Landstar Logistics and Agencia Naviera de Mexico, have launched a new roll-on/roll-off weekly service between Mobile, Ala., and Tuxpan, Mexico. It's gotten the attention of the Big Three automakers, who are looking at the service as a way around the rail and road congestion at Laredo, Texas, as well as the Mexican port of Veracruz.
Airlines must step up to the technology plate if they want to hold onto what's left of their market share. Combination carriers and forwarders have an opportunity to reclaim their position as the heavy freight provider internationally if the two join forces on technology.
43 J.B. Hunt Logistics is brewing up a steaming suite of Java-based software that it hopes will change the way it connects with most of its contracted motor carriers. With the help of IBM Corp., J.B. Hunt Logistics created the Internet Carrier Suite, four applications that permit freight scheduling, tracking and invoicing over the Internet, potentially replacing fax and EDI traffic. It will roll the software out May 1, introducing it to an initial group of 100 carriers.
46 European shippers soon will be able to use a rail "freightway" linking the ports of Marseilles in France and Antwerp in Belgium to help ease crowding on roads. The French rail operators SNCF will provide freightway service between the Marseilles port and Antwerp via Luxembourg and Lyon, France. It is expected to begin shortly, at the same time a similar service begins between Antwerp and Barcelona, Spain.
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