Eighteen months ago, your paper carried a warning from the shipping industry about a potential “trade logjam” unless governments prioritised the wellbeing of transport workers. These were not idle words (“Dealing with Christmas supply chain indigestion”, FT View, October 16).
Today, governments around the world are scrambling to fix a problem which they have ignored for too long: the ill-treatment of the seafarers, pilots and drivers who keep global trade moving. In medical terms they are treating a patient who has already arrived in A&E, when preventive health measures could have been taken a long time ago. During Covid, governments have been slow in declaring transport workers as key workers and to prioritise them for vaccines. Some have yet to do so.
This has meant that the crucial links in the global supply chain — human beings — were trapped on board ships, forced to sleep in their vehicles for weeks on end, or made to fly from quarantine to quarantine with no break. Despite repeated warnings from industry that supply chains could not weather this, and warning signs such as major port shutdowns in China and the US, global leaders were unwilling, or unable, to do what was needed.
They are now reaping the consequences. Christmas may not be cancelled, as many worry, but the post-Covid economic recovery for many countries has been pushed back significantly. Workforce numbers will struggle to recover.
The Biden administration’s public efforts to address bottlenecks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are welcome, but address symptom rather than cause.
Governments must implement an easing of travel restrictions for transport workers, allow them to be prioritised for vaccinations and agree common vaccination requirements to ensure supply chains can continue to meet the needs of the world.
Guy Platten
Secretary-General
International Chamber of Shipping, London EC3, UK
Letter: Vaccinating transport workers would ease supply bottlenecks
Pinoy Variant