ASSOCIATED PRESS
While shippers and the West Coast dockworkers' union argue over whether there is a slowdown moving cargo, isle stores are finally getting much-needed supplies.
Return to normal Safeway's Kailua store ran out of milk over the weekend and has been out of toilet paper for more than a week.
Some stores see shortages,
Shippers plan for meeting with mediator
but not for long
By Dave Segal
dsegal@starbulletin.comFoodland is running low on some brands of yogurt, as well as sour cream and cottage cheese.
Daiei will have to pull this week's bathroom tissue advertisement while Star Markets had to pull an ad last week.
It's been tough for Hawaii supermarkets to keep their shelves fully stocked in the wake of the West Coast dock lockout and subsequent shipping delays. But with Matson and CSX ships now arriving with overdue goods, it promises not to be much longer before shoppers again will be able to find all the items on their grocery list.
Hawaii's two largest dairies, Foremost and Meadow Gold, both said yesterday they received shipments of raw milk over the weekend, processed it into 2 percent, whole milk and other varieties, and yesterday began distributing the products to their customers.
"You should start seeing (the milk shelves) filled up by this afternoon," said Foremost Sales Manager Ed Kini, whose company services all of the state's major and independent stores. "After today's delivery we'll be OK. Last weekend, there was not much milk. It was really light and customers were going from one store to another based on what was available."
Meadow Gold received two tankers of milk over the weekend from the Big Island and has been working with supermarkets and stores to satisfy their needs, a company spokes-woman said.
Safeway, which ships most of its goods by ship to its 18 stores in the state, experienced some shortages but expects to be in better shape in a few days.
"Not every store is running as low as other stores on produce and other products," said David Bowlby, director of public affairs for Safeway's Northern California division, which includes Hawaii. "We had a shipment come in today and, as we speak, produce is being delivered to our stores today and tomorrow. I imagine any of the stores that might be experiencing a decrease in the amount of produce available will have the situation rectified in the next day or two. The stores should be back to normal very soon."
In fact, an employee at Kailua's Safeway store said last night that a shipment of milk was expected later in the evening and the shelves should have milk by this morning.
Retail distributor Fleming Cos., which services Foodland, Times and Daiei, said it weathered the lockout pretty well.
"Our inventories are pretty good," said Brian Christensen, president of Fleming's Hawaii division. "We've taken some advance preparation for this. We are waiting on ships but keys items are in stock. Perishables we've been flying. Toilet paper should have an adequate supply. We still have toilet paper here in the warehouse."
Foodland spokeswoman Sheryl Toda said its stores probably will be low on yogurt, sour cream and cottage cheese until Saturday but milk should be plentiful by today.
"We're OK on key items like bathroom tissue, rice and canned goods," she said.
Times President Roger Godfrey said the chain's stores also are looking good.
"We have some items that are out but in general we're in good shape," he said. "Our suppliers are local and have been able to take care of us with milk. I think the ones in trouble are shipping milk from the mainland."
Herb Gushikuma, general manager of Daiei, said an ad scheduled to run in Sunday's newspapers will be pulled because the retailer doesn't have enough of the MD brand bath tissue that was due to featured.
"We have an adequate stock of toilet tissue at our four stores, but it's not the same item and we don't have enough of any one specific brand to replace that one item," Gushikuma said.
He said Daiei is still in a waiting mode as it awaits for confirmation from its suppliers that shipments have arrived. However, he said the chain's inventory levels are all right at this time and dairy product shortages from last weekend should be alleviated by deliveries from Meadow Gold and Foremost.
Hawaii schools that depend on local milk also shouldn't find any problems.
"We were fortunate that during the lockout a lot of schools were out on intersession so we didn't need that much milk," said Kini of Foremost. "We were able to accumulate enough local milk over the week to supply the start-up of school."
Kini added that stores also will receive their normal deliveries but that Foremost won't try to overdeliver.
"Every store has a set schedule based on their normal sales," Kini said. "So our production and our projections are based on their normal daily sales. We can only produce and distribute so much. We're trying to stay within our normal operations even though this is a very abnormal situation for us. If we try to produce for an increase of 15 to 20 percent, even 40 percent, we would eventually run out before the end of the week. It would be like robbing from Peter to pay Paul. We really don't want to put ourselves in that situation."
Star Markets President John Fujieki offered 15 percent discounts across the board last week after the supermarket chain's advertisement became moot due to the unavailability of certain products.
"It should be a lot better this week," Fujieki said. "We'll have an ad Wednesday in MidWeek that will be good."
Two of Hawaii's big-box retailers also appear to be in good shape.
Mike Hayes, store manager of Costco in Waipio Gentry, said the retailer received about 70 containers over the weekend and previously air freighted "an extensive amount" of products to keep certain produce and meat items in stock.
John Stephens, support manager for Wal-Mart in Waipahu, said the store's supplies are "looking pretty good" with the only shortfall being in paper plates.
"But if the lockout would have gone one more week, we would have been pretty low," Stephens said.
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SAN FRANCISCO >> West Coast shipping carriers plan to meet with a federal mediator this week to prepare to resume union contract talks as dockworkers pushed to clear a cargo pileup from a 10-day lockout. Shippers plan for meeting
with mediatorAutomotive plants start production
as needed parts arriveBy Rip Watson
Bloomberg NewsThe Pacific Maritime Association cargo carriers group will meet with mediator Peter Hurtgen after he talks with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, carrier spokesman Steve Sugerman said. No dates have been set. Three Honda Motor Co. plants in North America are shut because needed parts are stuck in a backlog of about 200 ships waiting to unload.
The carriers said 25 percent less cargo was moved this past weekend than they expected, an estimate the union said was unrealistic given the cargo pileup. More than 10,000 dockworkers returned to their jobs late Wednesday after President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, starting an 80-day "cooling- off period" and ending the carriers' lockout of union workers.
"We are extremely interested in getting back to the table and working with the mediator and the union to hammer out a new agreement," Sugerman said.
Union Pacific Corp., the biggest U.S. railroad, had a record weekend, moving 18 trains of West Coast cargo a day, more than the usual 13, spokesman John Bromley said. Truckers hauled about half the cargo usually moved off docks, and may have focused energies on making more of the shorter trips to load trains.
Honda opened an East Liberty, Ohio, plant that was closed last week. The automaker's biggest U.S. plant, at Marysville, Ohio, and a factory in Lincoln, Alabama, should reopen tomorrow, spokesman Ed Miller said. The company plans to resume production Wednesday at a plant in Alliston, Ontario, contingent on getting an adequate parts supply, he said.
Mitsubishi Motors Corp. resumed production at a car plant in Normal, Illinois, spokesman Dan Irvin said. A limited supply of parts may shorten some work shifts this week, he said.
New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., a Fremont, California, plant owned by Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Corp. temporarily shut down because of the lockout, expects this year to make up production of 5,400 cars and pickup trucks lost due to parts shortages, plant spokesman Michael Damer said.
Yesterday, the plant ran its first overtime shift since the shutdown on a line that makes Toyota Corolla small cars and Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Voltz hatchbacks to make up for lost production, he said.
Sugerman said some drivers and clerks, who unload or stow cargo moved internationally by biggest ocean carrier Maersk Sea Land and smaller rivals, arrived late. Union spokesman Steve Stallone said he didn't know if workers arrived late.
The union is working to clear the backlog, and the cargo carriers "just make up numbers. If they weren't spending time trying to look for a union slowdown and instead spent time cooperating with us, the cargo would move," Stallone said.
The two sides remain deadlocked over use of new computers, scanners and other equipment, which the carriers say is needed to make ports more efficient. The union agreed to changes carriers want as long as union members get all new jobs created by the equipment. Dockworkers earn $58,240 to $104,000 a year based on 40- hour weeks, and foremen earned $158,013 a year in 2001, according to the carriers.
Almost 150 vessels are waiting to be unloaded at the four busiest West Coast ports: Los Angeles and Long Beach in California and Seattle and Tacoma in Washington.
Another 88 ships may arrive in the next two days.
Pacific Maritime Association
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
