The JOC’s Peter Tirschwell (left) with maritime industry leader Ronald D. Widdows onstage at TPM.

These are some of the pithy views expressed at the JOC’s 14th annual TPM conference here on March 4 by Widdows, CEO of Rickmers Group and Rickmers Linie. Widdows, who spent most of his career at the container carrier APL and then as president and CEO of its parent NOL, shared his views on the ups and down of the container industry with TPM attendees.

“It’s a very different perspective being on the asset side of the business,” Widdows said. Rickmers, which owns 71 container ships out of a fleet of 100 vessels, leases them out to ship operators. “In recent history it’s been a better business being on the side of giving assets to the guys who have to make money carrying cargo, and that didn’t work too well.”

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Pacific Maritime Association President James McKenna talks with JOC senior editor Bill Mongelluzzo at the JOC’s TPM conference.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — An estimated $150 million annual Obamacare tax on the generous health care plans enjoyed by West Coast dockworkers may lead to only a three-year contract rather than a six-year contract to replace the existing collective bargaining agreement that expires on June 30.

“It could be three years or six years, it’s hard to tell right now,” Pacific Maritime Association President James McKenna told the TPM conference this week in Long Beach.

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