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Negotiators for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association have reached a tentative coastwide contract agreement for five years after more than nine months of bargaining.

Canadian National Railway said it will lock out 4,800 union workers, some of whom are tied to its intermodal services, on Monday night if Unifor doesn’t agree to accept binding arbitration this weekend.

The publicly owned trucking companies tracked by JOC.com finished 2014 with $41.5 billion in combined revenue, a 10.9 percent improvement over 2013 attributed to growing industrial output, imports, exports and consumer confidence.

The North Carolina State Ports Authority is extending gates hours by an hour at the Port of Wilmington to help keep pace with volume growth.

Kansas City Southern Railway’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, who has helped lead the railroad’s successful push into the U.S.-Mexico cross-border market, has been promoted to president.

The mayors of Long Beach and Los Angeles told negotiators for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association to reach a coastwide contract settlement now.

U.S. intermodal volumes are declining, while Canadian shipments increase, a sign that more shippers are diverting cargo from the U.S. West Coast north to ports in British Columbia.

State-owned intermodal operator Container Corporation of India said it has helped clear out the backlog of import containers destined for Ludhiana that had stacked up at major ports on the west coast over the past few months.

The U.S. Labor Secretary on Thursday told the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association that they have until Friday to reach a contract or they’ll have to negotiate in Washington D.C.

The Port of Baltimore handled record volumes of containers, automobiles and general cargo in 2014, the Maryland Port Administration reported.

A healthier global economy, strong U.S. dollar and low fuel prices should give global logistics and transportation merger and acquisition activity a boost in 2015, according to consulting firm PwC US.

With West Coast ports reporting plunges in container volumes in January, port executives are becoming increasingly vocal in demanding that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association end the impasse in negotiations that is ravaging their ports.

Wal-Mart brought wider attention to how West Coast port congestion is hurting shippers, saying on Thursday that shipment delays are hurting its business and threaten its spring and Easter inventory.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker has entered negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, reflecting a ratcheting up of Obama administration pressure on both sides to reach a deal in order to end crippling West Coast port congestion.

Six years into the recovery, larger U.S. truckload carriers are finally beginning to expand fleets, not just swap older vehicles for new ones.

The Port of Oakland sharply criticized the International Longshore and Warehouse Union local in Northern California for in effect shutting down the port today in order to hold its regularly scheduled stop-work meeting during the day shift.

There is a growing disconnect between third-party logistics providers and manufacturers and retailers who say they are dissatisfied with the level of service they are being provided.

Drayage drivers serving the port of Manila warn that new rules requiring the phase-out of older trucks will cause congestion to rear its head again at the Philippines’ largest container port.

Multimodal logistics operator XPO sees opportunities as well as challenges in the West Coast container pileup, as shippers struggle to move freight inland.

DSV is working to attract European importers with its new warehouse in Edison, New Jersey, the global third-party logistics provider’s second in the U.S.

Air France-KLM’s cargo losses widened to 212 million euros [US $242 million] in 2014 from 202 million euros in the previous year as a two-week pilots’ strike compounded the impact of a weak global airfreight market.

In an encouraging sign for the still-struggling Japanese economy, the nation’s exports got off to a powerful start this year, with shipments to the U.S. and some other major trading partners in January rising at a double-digit pace compared to the prior year.

Some West Coast employers are appealing directly to working longshoremen to scrutinize the details of the Pacific Maritime Association’s contract proposal, with the implication that they should not let this offer slip away because they won’t receive a better one.

The Port of Charleston posted year-over-year increases of 12.6 percent in loaded 20-foot-equivalent units and 18 percent in total TEUs in January, benefiting from what port CEO James Newsome described as “across-the-board” cargo growth.

The number of loads available for spot dry van tractor-trailers have plummeted at West Coast ports since November, depressing outbound spot truckload rates, DAT Solutions said. A strong rebound is likely when the port labor dispute is resolved and containers start moving.

Canadian National Railway intermodal shippers face the prospect of a decrease in service if 4,800 union members walk off the job over a dispute on whether the railroad should pay into its community fund.

The largest International Longshoremen’s Association local in Baltimore rejected a tentative local contract that employers and ILA international officials had agreed upon in an effort to settle a 2-year-old labor standoff.

The Port of Portland and its container terminal operator, ICTSI, have a strategy to attract another carrier or carriers when Hanjin Shipping Co. next month leaves the Pacific Northwest port.

Florida needs to amp up its marketing efforts, offer new incentives and cut red tape in order to reclaim containerized imports and exports tied to the state but handled by other states’ ports, according to study released on Wednesday.

It’s too soon to determine whether a new police department tasked with protecting the Suez Canal will do enough to secure the region, a supply chain security expert told JOC.com on Wednesday.

The U.S. truck safety watchdog ordered three companies off the road in the space of a month for multiple driver and vehicle regulatory violations. Expect more such orders in 2015.

The gales of congestion that hit U.S. ports on both coasts at different times over the past year are boosting the business of one segment of the container industry: non-vessel-operating common carriers.

Hamburg Sud said it expects to seal the acquisition of the container shipping operations of Compania Chilena de Navegacion Interoceanica by the end of March.

U.S. Rep. Janice Hahn, a major advocate of port funding, is leaving Congress to run for an open seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Shippers could see truck pricing 'skyrocket' as they scramble to move containers inland once the labor situation at U.S. West Coast ports is resolved, BB&T Capital Markets said.

ICTSI, which operates Portland’s only container terminal, will seek to find a replacement in the trans-Pacific trades when Hanjin Shipping Co. ends its service at the Pacific Northwest port on March 9.

The decision by Japan state postal service to takeover regional logistics operator Toll Holdings for $5.07 billion is the second mega-logistics acquisition involving Japanese companies in as many days, and another exceptional price.

Hopes of a pre-Chinese New Year container volume surge through Hong Kong port were firmly dashed as the January data showed the transshipment hub actually saw a year-over-year decline of 6.1 percent during the first month.

With at least 50 container ships anchored off the West Coast on Tuesday, the eyes of the international trade community were focused on San Francisco to learn if U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez could break the impasse in contract negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association.

A partisan debate on Capitol Hill is threatening to throw even more delays into already slowed U.S. supply chains. What began as a debate over immigration reform has evolved into a stalemate that has put at risk customs operations at airports, seaports and land borders nationwide.