There’s a contract agreement in the long-running negotiations at West Coast ports. Dockworkers and port employers announced a tentative deal on a six-year contract late yesterday, the WSJ Logistics Report’s Paul Berger writes, bringing a measure of labor peace to the docks after more than a year of sometimes contentious talks that raised fears of cargo disruptions at key U.S. gateways. The two sides didn’t release details on the agreement. The talks had bogged down over wages in recent weeks and job actions at ports from Southern California to Seattle triggered alarms among importers and exporters and led to calls for White House intervention. In the end, the sides said Labor Secretary-designate Julie Su had helped broker the final deal. They released a joint statement that “recognizes the heroic efforts and personal sacrifices” of the dockworkers in keeping ports running during the Covid-19 pandemic.

• United Parcel Service and the Teamsters union agreed to a plan to install air conditioning in parcel vans. (CNN)

Dangerous and unscrupulous tractor-trailer drivers have found a backdoor into the U.S. Postal Service’s trucking network. The USPS has sharply scaled up its use of freight middlemen to secure trucking capacity, raising risks on the highway and loosening protections on who has access to the public’s mail. The WSJ’s Christopher Weaver reports that a review of police and court records shows drivers brought in through brokers include one who was in four crashes in six weeks, another who was convicted of crimes ranging from selling drugs to domestic abuse, and dozens who broke safety rules on the road.

The USPS usually requires its contractors to use drivers who pass background and drug checks, get low-level security clearances and have at least a couple of years’ experience driving. The Postal Service is also supposed to maintain records of drivers’ histories and screen them for violations. A Journal investigation found the USPS has in practice ditched some of those safeguards in favor of lower prices and greater flexibility. Freight brokers are widely used in the broader shipping industry, but the quick pace of the model isn’t compatible with USPS’s stringent requirements for drivers.

The shift toward brokers is part of a broader project of grafting cost-cutting commercial freight practices onto the Postal Service under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former board member of XPO Logistics. A USPS spokesman said, “Safety has been and will continue to be a top priority for the U.S. Postal Service.”

Global crude oil demand is likely to slow to trickle over the long term but may be gushing in the near term. The International Energy Agency is projecting a volatile period in energy markets in the next few years, the WSJ’s Will Horner reports, as electric-vehicle uptake surges and developed nations rapidly transition to cleaner sources of energy. The group expects demand to peak before the end of the decade, projecting a far more rapid shift away from fossil fuels than previously expected. Rapidly growing Asian economies will continue to prop up the global appetite for oil in the coming years. But the IEA also lifted its forecast for oil-demand growth this year by 200,000 barrels a day, with China accounting for 60% of that increase. That will feed more demand for crude tankers traveling along longer routes to Asia, extending the earnings surge in that shipping market.

Federal Reserve officials agreed to hold interest rates steady after 10 consecutive increases. (WSJ)

U.S. producer prices fell 0.3% in May, the third decline in four months. (MarketWatch)

The Biden administration is setting the stage for large companies to start buying clean-energy tax credits. (WSJ)

Toyota shareholders re-elected longtime leader Akio Toyoda to the board, rejecting a push against him over his stance on electric vehicles. (WSJ)

Modelo Especial overtook Bud Light as the top-selling beer in the U.S. (WSJ)

Volkswagen is targeting nearly $11 billion in cost savings by 2026 in its flagship brand. (Financial Times)

Pfizer says it will run out of a pediatric version of an antibiotic this year as shortages hobble U.S. pharma supplies. (Reuters)

Intermodal temperature-controlled specialist Tiger Cool Express shut down after financial backers pulled their support. (Journal of Commerce)

U.S. Great Lakes-Seaway cargo volume was down 2.8% in May from a year ago as the waterway’s shipping season began. (WorkBoat)

Walmart plans to open its own plant in Olathe, Kan., to provide Angus beef to its stores. (StoreBrands)

Athletic footwear supplier New Balance plans to build a manufacturing plant in Londonderry, N.H. (Union-Leader)

China’s JD.com opened an “intelligent logistics park” with 5.4 million square feet of warehousing and sorting space. (DC Velocity)

Spanish startup Trucksters raised about $36 million in a series B funding round backing its “relay trucking” strategy. (The Loadstar)

Paul Page is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at paul.page@wsj.com.

Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team: @PaulPage, @bylizyoung and @pdberger. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on Twitter at @WSJLogistics.