A new agreement between port operators represented by the Pacific Maritime Association and workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union was reached on Friday.  Night and weekend unloading, which had been halted during the dispute, resumed over the weekend, but even with ports operating at full capacity, the backlog is expected to take a long time to unclog.

U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Deputy Director Scot Beckenbaugh mediated the agreement.  Perez had threatened to summon negotiators to Washington if a new deal was not reached Friday (see "Port Problems Delay FFG 'Star Wars' Shipments").  The agreement still has to be approved by both groups.

The large backlog that built up during the dispute, which had worsened recently, has a number of hard-to-solve logistics problems at its core, including 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 turned off by the profit-eating waits due to congestion at the docks.

Game and comic companies that have acknowledged delays due to port issues include Fantasy Flight Games, which has been particularly hard hit on its Star Wars lines, WizKids, and IDW Publishing.