A Hanjin cargo ship that was stranded for more than a week on the coast of California has started unloading on Saturday after a judge defended the shipping giant from having its goods confiscated in the U.S. The company was trying to elude bankruptcy.
The labor union leaders mentioned that the 1,145-foot-long Hanjin Greece arrived at Port of Long Beach in California on Saturday morning, and workers started to unload tons of imported electronics, clothing, plastic goods, and furniture.
The authorization for the Hanjin Shipping container vessel to access the port appeared after bankruptcy courts in South Korea, and the United States allowed the company to pay $10 million to empty cargo from four ships traveling to ports on the United States West Coast.
The four vessels that weren’t allowed to leave or enter the port after Hanjin reported for insolvency protection in the U.S on Sept. 2 and in South Korea on Aug. 31 presumably carried around $14 billion worth of commodities.
Many other ships were also stranded around the world because Hanjin could not ensure that employees like tugboat captains, crane operators, and others would be compensated for their co-operation or that they could meet fuel bills. Before each vessel could be docked, shippers, cargo owners, and port operators must first establish financial agreements with Hanjin.
John Sherwood, the U.S. Bankruptcy judge, recommended the parties to work their issues among themselves while admitting that many problems have remained unsolved.
Robert Krieger, freight forwarder headquartered, customs broker and director of Krieger Worldwide believes that terminal operators might oppose allowing Hanjin to dock without having the certainty that the vessel will quickly leave.
Other problems raised by the court that have not yet been entirely concluded are involving the future activities of the retailers and containers that are stacking up at ports.
The vice president of customs policy at the National Retail Federation, Jonathan Gold, mentioned that many of the retailers now have hollow containers which they can’t deliver to port.
Union executives said that this situation appears to modify hourly in the last week with opposing information of where the ships are traveling.
A representative of the Justice for Port Drivers, Barbara Maynard, stated that it is very hard to obtain valuable information about what would the ships be allowed to do next.
Image source: Wikipedia