Author Archives: just2bruce

First European-owned vessel recycled at yard in the US

Posted on April 26, 2022 | 1 comment

Seatrade reports that a European-owned vessel is in the US for shipbreaking. International Shipbreaking Limited (ISL) has invested a lot in bringing shipbreaking yards up to international standards for compliance with shipbreaking rules.

It’s a great advance to have compliant yards available and ready to recycle ships.

The abuse of labor in third-world ship recycling facilities is well known. True, it’s not perceived there as abuse. But the absence of safety standards for ship recycling workers, and payment by piece work, encourages unsafe behavior, and also unsustainable behavior by shipowners. These should stop. The EU regulation is a good first move, and having a place to do it is valuable.

Perhaps the next step is to have complaint yards for recycling empty containers in importing nations. Since it’s more expensive to ship them back than to buy new ones in China, it makes sense to salvage the metal here and also do away with the storage problem.

Seatrade logo

Marcus Hand | Apr 26, 2022

First European-owned vessel recycled at yard in the US

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Posted in Logistics, Shipping, Sustainability

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Truck driver pay hurt by 84-year-old law

Posted on April 22, 2022 | 1 comment

Truck drivers can’t get overtime pay, according to a US law. The law is old, and was passed to meet a need when trucking was regulated. with the shortage of drivers today, shouldn’t we look at allowing overtime pay?

Doing so would probably increase some drivers’ take-home. It might also induce trucking firms to reduce the service level, on the grounds that they won’t pay the extra for overtime. That would mean we would need even more drivers to handle the loads we need to. Or cargo would not move.

Fairness to people seems to warrant allowing overtime wages for truckers. That could be a social objective we’d like to see met. It’s fair also to look at what the flow of goods might look like if overtime were paid. That is harder, because we don’t know how firms would execute on the rule as they try to handle the consigned loads. It might be better to not pay overtime and try to outsource loads to independent operators on a piecework basis.

The effect would probably include a lot more outsourcing to owner-operators. And with all the controversy today about what owner-operators are owed in terms of benefits and work rules, more controversy and confusion could erupt.

Rachel Premack Thursday, April 21, 2022

Truck driver pay hurt by 84-year-old law

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Posted in Labor Economics, Logistics, Trucking

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Upcoming European tsunami

Posted on April 21, 2022 | 1 comment

I never heard of the European Union’s taxonomy regulation before.

It’s designed to increase investment in green economic activities, and discourage investment in environmentally sensitive ones. Essentially it codifies the Poseidon Principles into an EU policy.

The term ‘taxonomy’ comes from the intent to classify investments with regard to a number of criteria. In other words, you can’t call an investment ‘green’ unless it speaks to these issues, and meets established criteria.

According to the author, the taxonomy regulation has several main environmental points, as well as social ones:

  • climate change mitigation
  • climate change adaptation
  • sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources
  • transition to a circular economy
  • pollution prevention and control
  • protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.

The author is a bit concerned that the regulation will give non-European companies an advantage in pursuing shipping investments. And he’s worried about the effect on shipping finance, though he supports the idea of green investment. He just thinks there will be a time of disruption in the financing of maritime activities, with good long-term effects but some short-range dislocation.

That dislocation could affect supply chains in general. For instance, slower steaming will effectively reduce the capacity on main shipping lanes. And the fact that newbuild years are booked two or more years ahead will prevent faster turnover or augmentation of the fleet with cleaner ships.

Nonetheless, adoption will clarify what a green investment means, and will reduce greenwashing— publicizing efforts that are relatively small improvements as major contributions to environmental improvement. And, especially in Europe, it will put down a marker for firms and individuals to reach for.

Dagfinn Lunde April 21, 2022

Upcoming European tsunami – Splash247

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Posted in Logistics, Shipping, Sustainability

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