Truckers will soon be able to work Port of Oakland on Saturdays

Port of OaklandPort of Oakland

The Port of Oakland intends to become one of the few U.S. ports to offer off-peak shifts by adding full Saturday operations.

The fee to fund Saturday operations “must be reasonable and used exclusively for those operations,” port officials stated Aug. 21. Currently, terminals are open weekends for vessel operations, but rarely for other activities.

Saturday operations will include gate entry, allowing truckers to pick up containerized imports for delivery, drop off exports or return empties. The port will also offer offsite locations to collect empty containers and a common chassis pool for truckers.

A labor shortage has slowed vessel loading and more dockworkers will be needed to ensure successful Saturday operations, port representatives said. On Aug. 7, the Federal Maritime Commission published notice of Oakland’s proposal in the Federal Register, which will require each terminal to add one off-peak or weekend shift.

The port said it will review the Saturday program after its first year.

Last month, the FMC reported that U.S. marine terminals usually do not have cargo pick up and delivery outside of daytime weekday hours because of labor costs. Longshore worker contracts provide for differential shift pay, overtime pay, minimum hour guarantees and minimum size of labor work units.

The nation’s first large-scale, permanent extended-hours program was implemented in 2005 at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.

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