Alexander Acosta visits APM Terminals
APM Terminals Pier 400 Los Angeles hosted U.S. Secretary of Labor R. Alexander Acosta today, as he toured the world’s largest proprietary container terminal, and met with leadership officials of the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union, (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) as his first official visit to an American port operation since being confirmed as a member of the Trump Cabinet in April this year.
The Port of Los Angeles is America’s busiest container port, with traffic through the first seven months reflecting a 9.5% growth rate over last year’s port record of 8.8 million TEUs handled.
Jim McKenna, CEO of the PMA and ILWU Vice President Ray Familathe addressed the group following welcoming remarks by APM Terminals Pier 400 Managing Director Steven Trombley, and Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka.
Secretary Acosta also met with representatives of the PMA, which negotiates and administers maritime labor agreements with the ILWU on behalf of its 78 member companies, which include shipping lines, terminal operators and stevedores.
This includes the ILWU contract which includes approximately 14,200 longshore, clerk and foreman workers at 29 ports on the US West Coast, encompassing port operations from Southern California to the U.S. Pacific Northwest. In July, the ILWU membership voted to extend their current contract with the PMA for three years, assuring smooth labor relations at the U.S. West Coast port facilities through July 1st 2022.
At 484 acres, APM Terminals Pier 400, which opened in 2002, is the largest single private container terminal in the world. The 65-acre on-dock rail facility, including intermodal yard and storage tracks, and five miles of working track can accommodate four double stack trains simultaneously. Container throughput at the Pier 400 terminal was 2.64 million TEUs in 2016.
“We are proud to welcome Secretary Acosta to Pier 400, which is continuing to lead the Port of Los Angeles in the innovation and infrastructure required for the newest generations of Ultra-Large Container Ships linking the U.S. and Asia” stated Pier 400 Managing Director Trombley.
In May 2016, a contract was signed to raise the height of 10 STS cranes by 33 feet, which at completion will be the largest terminal cranes in use in the Western Hemisphere. The CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin became the largest container ship ever to call a North American port when it docked at APM Terminals Pier 400 Los Angeles on December 26th, 2015. During 2016, the Port of Los Angeles handled 40 vessel calls of container ships of 13,000 TEU capacity and above.
