Sixty-five percent of 138 shippers surveyed last week said will reduce cargo going the US west coast after suffering severe congestion and go-slows from recalcitrant dockers, reports Newark's Journal of Commerce.

Most JOC survey respondents blamed the union, with nearly 62 percent saying the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) was solely at fault. Only 2.2 percent blamed the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), employers' bargaining unit.

The 65 percent figure held firm when a similar poll produced the same proportion ready to quit the west coast for the east in December. Other causes cited were a shortage of chassis and drivers as well as the addition of mega ships that flooded the docks with cargo.

But some say they have no choice to retaining the US west coast despite horrendous delays. "I'm an agricultural shipper. I can't move my hazelnut orchards or grass seed fields. We are stuck with the west coast ports for better or worse," said one exporter.

In 2002, when west coast employers locked out dockers for 10 days, the west coast to east coast cargo loss began when ports like Savannah, Georgia, marketed themselves as "Asian ports" because that is where most of their imports came from.

Against all evidence, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has denied that it engaged in slowdown tactics, blaming, instead, chassis dislocation and employers' inability to handle larger vessels and other factors controlled by employers.

US east coast ports are likely to be the beneficiaries of the shippers' change in attitude with 38.8 percent saying they will go east with their cargo and 23 percent saying they are looking to the south east where there has been little or no congestion in the last year.

Fourteen percent of those surveyed last week said they would shift cargo via Canadian west coast ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, but that sentiment plunged from the 28 percent in the December poll.

The west coast dock problem is likely to boost nearshoring, that of making products closer to the point of sale, and avoiding dealing with the ILWU or the troublesome International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) that rules the east and Gulf coasts.