Shipping delays of geek culture products continue to mount, as delays from the labor dispute at West Coast ports ripple through supply chains.  The latest publisher to add its products to the list of those delayed by the dispute is Fantasy Flight Games, which announced that release dates on six new products, including five tied to Star Wars, and on 19 restocks, including 14 tied to Star Wars, are being pushed back.

The delayed new products include the Star Wars: Armada Core Set, Star Wars: Armada Dice Set, Rogue Squadron cycle for Star Wars: The Card Game, Fly Casual supplement for Edge of the Empire, and the first wave of Imperial Assault Ally Packs and Villain Packs.

The delayed restocks include the X-Wing Core Set and 13 Expansion Packs.

Although daytime unloading resumed on Tuesday, until the dispute is resolved ports will be operating at only partial capacity due to a combination of an unofficial work slowdown by union workers and reductions in shifts by port operators.

President Obama dispatched U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez to mediate the dispute this week, and he’s been meeting with both sides in San Francisco.  Now Perez has issued a deadline to negotiators, telling them that if they do not resolve the final issues by Friday, he will summon them to Washington, D.C., to continue negotiations in the nation’s capital, according to the Associated Press.

Other shipments have also been affected, including those from WizKids (see "WizKids Release Date Update"), which has been communicating shipping delay information to retailers weekly, and IDW Publishing, which pushed back release on this week’s comics (see "IDW Announced that its 2/18 Comic Books Will Be Delayed").

The situation is particularly acute because crews only worked four of ten days in the period ended last Monday due to the suspension of weekend and holiday unloading operations by port operators (see "No Ships Unloading at West Coast Ports").

But even if the labor dispute is resolved, it seems likely that delays will continue, as there are a number of underlying logistics problems.  Those include increased ship sizes, which have increased the complexity and difficulty of sorting and dispatching loads to the proper carriers for ground transportation, a shortage of chassis related to a change in responsibility for storing and maintaining them, and a shortage of truckers who are sick of the profit-eating waits due to congestion at the docks, according to The Washington Post.