ASSOCIATED PRESS
Reiko Chinei stocked up on toilet paper yesterday at Star Market in Honolulu. A drawn-out work stoppage at ports on the West Coast could result in a shortage of consumer goods in Hawaii.
Hawaii goods Maui Pineapple Co. has 400,000 cases of fruit that left its Kahului plant, but won't make it to mainland customers while West Coast docks are shut down.
stack up as ships
remain at dock
Among goods unable to get out
Negotiations off again
of the state are 400,000 cases
of Maui Pineapple fruitBy Russ Lynch
Moving company M. Dyer & Sons Inc. has a 20-foot container of household goods bound for Honolulu that is stuck in Houston.
Separated by an ocean, those are the two ends of the shipping line knotted while the International Longshore & Warehouse Union is locked out of 29 West Coast ports by Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines.
A session with a federal mediator broke down immediately yesterday when the union objected to the presence of armed security guards hired by the PMA. Another session was scheduled for today, but that was cast into doubt late yesterday.
At Maui Pineapple, there are plenty of empty containers available to move products from the plant, now the only pineapple cannery in the United States.
"Hawaii stevedores are still at full capacity," said Gary Kawano, Maui Pineapple operations manager.
Most of the company's goods go to the West Coast on Matson Navigation Co. ships and Matson continues to accept cargo, he said.
The worry is how to get the goods -- mostly canned pineapple, but also some fresh whole pineapple and packaged cut fruit -- to customers on the mainland, he said. Taking up about 400 containers, some of the fruit is on land in Hawaii, some at sea and some on the West Coast docks, Kawano said.
At M. Dyer, moving consultant Tate Matthews said his company coordinated the move from Houston and found that railways won't take on any cargo heading for West Coast docks.
Maile McWilliams, who said she lived "four long years" in Texas before moving back to Honolulu last weekend, said she doesn't mind that she and her husband cannot get their goods because they have nowhere to put it. They are looking for an apartment or house. "It works out to be a benefit," she said today.
M. Dyer will store it when it does eventually get here, she said. She was surprised to find herself affected by the labor dispute on the West Coast, though. She knew there was a shipping holdup but couldn't see how she would be affected.
The movers picked up the goods Friday and she just assumed it would be on its way, she said.
Economists say island businesses have been affected for months by rising costs because of their need to increase inventories ahead of time in case of a shipping halt.
But opinions vary on what the economic impact may be and there is still optimism the impact will be minor unless the stoppage runs for weeks.
"We've already felt an effect as households and businesses began stockpiling or maintaining higher than normal inventories," said Paul Brewbaker, chief economist at Bank of Hawaii. "There's a cost and it is not trivial."
For example, many businesses have paid more than they usually do for financing and storage of advanced purchases, he said.
"For several months we've already been bearing the costs, using resources that would have been spent on other things," Brewbaker said. The costs may not be large, but businesses that have been getting by and recovering from Sept. 11 had to spend extra money, he said.
As for the next step, running out of goods and maybe shutting down some businesses, Brewbaker thinks that is weeks away and advance preparation is helping to prevent dire consequences.
Leroy Laney, a professor of economics at Hawaii Pacific University, said it is hard to quantify the economic impact so far, but the effect will grow over time.
"Two weeks would be more than twice the damage of just one week," he said. "The longer it goes on, the more damaging it will become economically, because people will run out of those inventories and then we'll have shortages and prices will go up."
Pearl Imada Iboshi, an economist for the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, said she has been hearing that the business impact is not bad just yet.
"I've been hearing that one or two weeks (of stoppage) would not be a problem," she said. "It really depends on how well people prepared and by how much inventory has been increased."
She said that Hawaii at least has frequent aircraft movements between the mainland and Hawaii so some goods can come in by more costly method of air freight.
Gov. Ben Cayetano stepped into the labor dispute on the West Coast yesterday with a letter to both the PMA and the ILWU seeking special treatment for Hawaii.
He said Hawaii is almost entirely dependent on ocean shipping and deserves an exemption that would let West Coast terminals load Hawaii-bound goods. About 90 percent of Hawaii's goods arrive by ship.
News reports said an arrangement has been discussed to let Alaska-bound goods out of one of that state's supply ports, Tacoma, Wash.
Behind the talks is Alaska's heavy reliance on ocean shipping. Officials in the West Coast dispute were not available to say whether such an exemption could happen, either for Hawaii or Alaska.
But, Cayetano said, shipping is much more vital to Hawaii.
"Unlike Alaska, there are no roads to Hawaii and all goods and supplies must be shipped either by ship or air carrier," Cayetano said. "A prolonged labor dispute will have a devastating effect on the economy and morale of our island state."
Pacific Maritime Association
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
