Staffing dispute shuts Oakland’s biggest terminal for a day; Plan unveiled at Los Angeles to speed cargo flows; Long Beach loses status as number two port. It may not come as a surprise given the massive cargo backlogs and bad blood that have built up through the fall and winter, but three weeks after West Coast waterfront labor and management reached a tentative five-year collective bargaining agreement, the situation is still not stable. At the Port of Oakland, a dispute over staffing levels between the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) shut yard and gate operations at the Oakland International Container Terminal, the port’s main terminal, on Wednesday. By Thursday, the terminal was operating normally, according to Mike Zampa, a port spokesman. Oakland is believed to be the only one of the 29 West Coast ports represented by the ILWU experiencing lingering labor issues. PMA said on its web site that ILWU Local 10, which works the terminal, refused to allow yard crane operators to work unless management agreed to staff each crane with three workers instead of the normal ratio of two workers per crane. All other terminals at Oakland operate at a 2-to-1 worker-to-crane ratio, PMA said. The ILWU local was unavailable to comment. Meanwhile, the Agricultural Transportation Coalition, a group that represents U.S. agriculture and lumber exporters, quoted in a note today an executive for a major importer that cannot unload all 12 of its containers from a ship in Oakland, and is being hit with $1,540 in demurrage, or detention, for failing to return one of the containers to the terminal within the allotted "free time" grace period. The importer, according to the group, said its truckers have queued up daily, but as of this morning had only recovered […]