A labor dispute between West Coast port managers and workers have left Saipan stores empty of bananas and eggs\u2014after shipments were delayed for almost a week due to the shutdown of the Port of Oakland, in California, according to Triple J Five Star Wholesale, which distributes produce to stores across the island.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune contacted island stores yesterday, after hearing reports from the public that there were no bananas, eggs, and other produce in their stores.<\/p>\n
A Hannam Market employee said there had been a shortage of eggs and bananas. Their eggs \u201cjust arrived last Sunday, Monday,\u201d he said. They are \u201cstill waiting\u201d on bananas, he said.<\/p>\n
Staff from Happy Market II in As Lito said their stock for eggs arrived yesterday, after a shortage last week. There were still \u201cno bananas from the mainland,\u201d the staff said. One said they expect their shipment to arrive \u201cby the 16th.\u201d<\/p>\n
An employee from XO Market said there was a produce shortage last week, and \u201ceggs came in this week, early Monday.\u201d But there are no bananas yet, she noted.<\/p>\n
An I Mart employee also noted the same.<\/p>\n
The affected products were only the imports. Local bananas and eggs continued to be available.<\/p>\n
Strike delays shipments<\/strong><\/p>\n In an interview yesterday, Triple J sales manager Esther Yamson pointed to the strike in the Port of Oakland that held back shipments for a week.<\/p>\n She wants to let customers know that shipments are now \u201con their way\u201d and \u201cin the water.\u201d<\/p>\n She said a shipment of bananas is set to arrive this Sunday, for market Wednesday.<\/p>\n As for eggs and other produce, these stocks are \u201cback to normal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She noted a barge from San Francisco had undergone repair, she said.<\/p>\n Shipments were transferred to another barge and were delivered this week, she said.<\/p>\n She also noted that the barge\u2019s repair had affected shipments to Guam as well.<\/p>\n The San Francisco Business Times and San Francisco Chronicle reported last month that managers had shut down the Oakland port, after strife-filled months of labor negotiations between workers and manager came to a head.<\/p>\n A state union had set their monthly meeting during working hours on Feb. 19, Business Times reported. Workers chose to attend.<\/p>\n Times reported that the work stoppage froze the loading and unloading of containers on 12 vessels, and halted export and import activity.<\/p>\n The International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shippers, have failed to agree to a new contract after their prior labor agreement expired last July, according to Business Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A labor dispute between West Coast port managers and workers have left Saipan stores empty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,4],"tags":[2846,26,2847,2848],"class_list":["post-193807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","category-local-news","tag-business-times","tag-cnmi","tag-esther-yamson","tag-west-coast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}