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US harbor trucking firms are concerned that an agreement by the Port of Vancouver in British Columbia to pay truck drivers an hourly wage will become a precedent and cause US drivers to increase agitation for hourly pay. Truck drivers at US harbors are paid per trip, not per hour, and some work stoppages have already occurred at US ports. Vancouver agreed to the new pay to end a month-long strike.

Recent reductions in the man-hour and containerized cargo assessments at West Coast ports will bring enormous savings in labor costs for shipping lines and terminal operators. These assessments are used to finance fringe benefit programs for longshoremen. The cuts were made by the Pacific Maritime Assn., a group of employers in West Coast ports that calculates fringe benefits for longshoremen, due to an increase in cargo traffic at the ports. Some industry officials, however, have claimed that the reductions will bring minimal benefit to shipping lines since assessments comprise a small portion of their labor costs.

A Sea-Land Service Inc. (Sea-Land) plan to reflag five of its vessels will have an adverse impact on the salaries and benefits of US deck officers serving on them. Under the terms of an agreement signed between Sea-Land subsidiary Intersea Operations Ltd. and the International Maritime Organization, a master will receive total compensation of $72,760 for an eight-month rotary shift. In contrast, masters working six month-terms on US-flagged vessels typically receive $132,000. Industry observers believe the Sea-Land move will be followed soon by other US shipping lines looking to lower costs and remain competitive.

Sales and management positions in the ocean shipping business are preferable over clerical workers when deciding to build a career and earning a good living. Clerical positions are fine when working for a ship line in Los Angeles or Long Beach wherein most of the shipping lines are organized by the Office Clerical Division of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and members earn about $40,000 to $45,000 annually. Clerical workers in the New York and New Jersey areas, on the other hand, earn only $25,000 to $35,000.

Shipowners and the California's Board of Pilot Commissioners are disputing over a board recommendation to increase pilot rates by 10%, allowing pilots to earn nearly $200,000 a year by 2000. The increase has been approved by the state legislature and is awaiting Gov. Pete Wilson's approval or veto. The shipowners have accused the board of violating its legal mandate when it approved the increase without reviewing the $6.4 million pilots spend annually to run their operation.

Marine pilots in San Francisco Bay are calling for the restructuring of the system that shipping lines use to determine compensation for local pilotage services. The pilots are highly dissatisfied with the 4% pay increase for 1996 that was awarded to them by an administrative law judge. They say that their pay hikes do not take inflation into consideration. They are proposing the use of a modified version of the compensation system that ship owners employed to set pilot compensation until 1990.

Southern California port pilots' petition for rate increases was approved by shipowners while San Francisco Bay Area pilots' request for a 9.6% rate hike was denied. Port pilots, who operate under state regulations, direct the berthing of vessels. Shipowners stress the large difference in pilot earnings in Northern and Southern California. Long Beach and Los Angeles pilots earn $70,000-$80,000 a year while Bay Area pilots receive more than $200,000.

The INS will provide shipping lines with rate schedules that will allow the latter to calculate what they must pay for an INS agent's overtime. This came after a two-day meet between the INS and the National Assn of Maritime Organizations, a New Orleans group representing more than a dozen of the US' largest associations of shipowners, brokers and agents. The INS, though, cannot speed up its billing of shipping lines for the overtime work rendered by its personnel.