Sept. 30, 2012 is a headline date in the maritime industry because it marks the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement between labor and management on the East and Gulf coasts. With new leadership on labor’s side and an emphatic focus on several core issues on management’s agenda, a sense of uncertainty as to how negotiations will progress and what outcome will be produced is palpable.
While recent past negotiations produced no industry-stopping pauses, this time a more militant union leadership challenged by a financially strapped shipping industry brings the specter of an industry-stopping event into clear focus.
The container liner shipping business is going through another period of financial loss that is simply not sustainable. Brought on by the industry itself and hard on the heels of the 2008-09 economic downturn, the losses are wobbling an industry that hasn’t fully recovered from its last knockdown. Though overall trade volume is up, capacity far outstrips demand and will do so for at least several years. No industry pundit is predicting positive results for that time frame, so survival becomes a key issue for liner companies.
Finally, the economic situation in Europe could trump any other event in 2012. A collapse of the eurozone would have a profound effect on global trade and force all of us into new business models that reflect severely decreased opportunities.