Pressure on wine shipments mounts as US ports still deadlocked over contracts

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The looming threat of industrial action at US west coast ports – where the dockers’ union, the ILWU, is in negotiations with employer body Pacific Maritime Association to renew the master contract – is once more hanging over shippers. While the feeling at this year’s TPM conference in Long Beach a couple of months ago was that an agreement could be reached relatively easily, some shippers – in this case UK wine retailers importing from Californian growers – are already getting concerned.