West Coast Port Shutdown Slowed Auto/Autoparts Production.

Operations at many of the nation's vehicle assembly and auto parts plants are slowly returning to normal after a federal judge ordered an injunction under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to end lockout of about 10,500 union workers at U.S. West Coast ports. The lockout that started Sept.29th.

The U.S. economy was losing up to $1 billion a day and the automotive industry was particularly hard hit because imported parts and vehicles could not be delivered. The Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) estimates the value of automotive products and vehicles shipped into West Coast ports to be at least $42 billion in 2002.

Ford Motor Co. has 12 U.S. plants including factories in Atlanta; Chicago; Edison, N.J.; and Cleveland that depend on parts shipped through West Coast ports. A joint venture of General Motors and Toyota in Fremont, Calif., was forced to suspend production because of parts shortages. The factory came back on line only with auto transmissions and other parts delivered by airfreight.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. stopped production at its Illinois auto plant because of a parts shortage. At Honda, three North American plants stopped production temporarily because of parts shortage caused by the dock dispute. The effected plants included its East Liberty, Ohio; Lincoln, Alabama; and Alliston, Ontario, plants. Although the dock dispute has been put on hold due to federal intervention and shipping is resuming, Honda still faces temporary parts shortages.

Other auto plants may be affected by the dock strike as goods coming from Asia continue to be delayed at West Coast ports. And companies that import vehicles, such as Kia and Nissan, are seeing the impact of the closed ports.

Ford and General Motors both say they have contingency plans that could go into effect if the strike continues, and Chrysler says it should not feel the impact of the strike because 94 percent of its products are built in North America.

The Longshoremen's union and the freight carriers started contract talks in May and deadlocked over the expanded use of computers and scanners at the docks, which the carriers say they need to make ports more efficient. The union agreed to changes carriers requested in return for union members getting all jobs created by the new equipment.

The backlog for offloading cargo may take as many as six to seven weeks, estimated Joe Miniace, chief executive of the carriers' association. Richard Mead, president of ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco, said "you've got a lot of disgruntled people out there, these are not good conditions to go back to work."

He wouldn't estimate how long it may take to move cargo backed up at the docks. "They are going to pressure us to work fast and the union is going to press to work safe," he said. The union told members to adhere to health and safety regulations when talks reached an impasse.

The carriers said production at the ports fell as much as 54 percent and accused the union of staging a slowdown.