Shanghai Trucker Strike

On Thursday, April 20th, 2011, there was a strike by Shanghai Truckers.  The rising fuel prices and low wages have caused a civil unrest with Shanghai citizens and truckers.

“The police dispelled the gather(ing) around the terminal and depot yesterday 4/20. However several terminals (were) forced to close…yesterday.

Today, police are (on) standby at the gate of the terminal and depot, so there’s no big gather(ing) but strikers separated to the surrounding area to attack the non strik(ing) trucker, messengers etc and a lot of truck tire(s) were running flat on the way to the terminal caused by the nails (spread on the road by the strikers last nite).

Even (worse) is messengers were attacked which caused the delay to take the E.I.R.(Equipment Interchange Receipt), also caused (the) trucker(s) (to not be able to) pick the empty container to/from terminal. All carriers (have) been impacted.

All above are reported from depot/trucker and couriers, however, I just (ran) back from the terminal area, what I can see is a little bit less container truck traffic and each major junction with police car standby. No demonstrate(rs), no gathering (has) been seen.

Also, from some other source, certain agreement was reached today, the trucker’s cost/expense will reduce.

Hope the chaos will over and recover tomorrow or the day after.”

Below is an update regarding shipping in and out of this region.

• It is believed a certain volume of shipments will be affected.  Please check with your shipper/trucker to see if you are affected.

• Switching to Ningbo will most likely not be a good idea.  This will increase trucking cost and the shipper will not absorb this amount.  Also, the space in Ningbo is even tighter than Shanghai.  This option to switch is there for your choosing though.