Author Archives: just2bruce

Disgruntled HMM seafarers threaten pay strike and to join rival carrier MSC

Posted on August 24, 2021 | 1 comment

I found the mechanics of this seafarer strike interesting. But for logistics students with little knowledge of the maritime environment, all of this will be new.

Many don’t realize that sailrs on many lines have been trapped at see by Covid. Their home countries won;’t allow them in without quarantines longer than their breaks, or perhaps not at all in some Asian countries. so they are trapped on thieir vessels with no breaks.

It’s a hard life; but maritimers are paid well– look at the wages, and these are for Korean-flagged ships. US flag ships would pay more.

By Nick Savvides 24/08/2021

Disgruntled HMM seafarers threaten pay strike and to join rival carrier MSC – The Loadstar

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Posted in Labor Economics, Logistics, Shipping

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2021 is the year of the freight service embargo

Posted on August 19, 2021 | 2 comments

It’s not possible to book shipments anymore with some LTL carriers. Their capacity is full, and they don’t care if they get new customers. OnTrak (which delivers my vitamin pills) and Fedex recently said they were refusing new customers. The claims are that they are out of capacity– not enough planes, trucks and drivers— to deliver everything. There are other less visible bottlenecks, also, such as a shortage of trucks for sale due to the semiconductor shortage. There’s been a sort of crisis in drivers for trucks for quite a while, exacerbated by the recent enforcement of rules to prevent people who fail drug tests from getting commercial driver’s licenses. We wonder why employers don’t pay drivers more, and take more care to create working conditions more favorable to drivers.

Still, common carriers have an obligation to carry the freight presented. It will be interesting to see how far this goes, and when regulators will start crawling through these carriers’ records to see if they are unfairly denying carriage.

Eric Kulisch, Air Cargo Editor Thursday, August 19, 2021

Viewpoint: 2021 is the year of the freight service embargo – FreightWaves

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Posted in Logistics, Supply Chains, Trucking

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Shipping must review LNG use, as methane’s role in climate change is revealed

Posted on August 18, 2021 | 1 comment

It seems polluting gases come from every burned fuel. Now we find that LNG, a fuel that is reputedly cleaner than heavy diesel oil for ships, is likely to create ‘leaked methane’ around the cylinders, allowing it to escape to the open air.

Apparently there are two types of LNG engines: one with ‘tight’ cylinders, and one with ‘loose’ cylinders. The ones with loose cylinders are much cheaper to install, but also leak the methane most. It’s thought that carriers will tend to install the cheaper ones.

By Nick Savvides 06/08/2021

https://theloadstar.com/shipping-must-review-lng-use-as-methane-role-in-climate-change-is-revealed/

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Posted in Logistics, Shipping, Sustainability

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