Port labor dispute impacts Apache

CEDAR RAPIDS - A lingering labor dispute at ports on the nation's West Coast has become a supply chain nightmare for a variety of American businesses, including Apache in southwest Cedar Rapids,

The employee-owned company fabricates and distributes hose, belting, cut and molded rubber, and industrial consumer products for domestic and international customers.

'Like many companies in Cedar Rapids, we rely on imports of raw materials and components from global sources,” said Tom Pientok, Apache president and CEO. 'We have a bunch of containers that are held up either on the West Coast or just off the coast on ships.

'Our export sales to Europe haven't been directly affected, but there's an issue of shipping container availability. A shortage has developed because the containers are tied up and not going back to Asia to bring more imports here.”

Pientok said Apache tries to purchase materials from suppliers in the United States.

'We're proud to be a U.S. company, but the reality is we live in a global economy,” he said. 'If we totally choked off imports, our standard of living in this country would suffer dramatically.”

Pientok said Apache acted early to stock additional inventory, which so far has negated any impact to the company's U.S. and overseas customers. But that has tied up cash that Apache was planning to use for a $7.3 million, 90,000-square-foot expansion project.

'If this drags on much longer, it will probably slow the pace of that expansion,” Pientok said. 'We have contacted every member of our congressional delegation to make them aware of the severe impact this dispute is having on the nation's economy and jobs.”

Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., are home to two of the nation's largest ports that collectively handle nearly half of all U.S. maritime trade and more than 70 percent of imports from Asia. At stake is a new contract for roughly 20,000 dockworkers who have been working without an agreement for six months.

Pientok said the impact on imports will take months to reverse.

'If the dispute were resolved today, it would take a minimum of four to six months to get back to normal,” he said.