Longshoremen at East and Gulf Coast ports from Maine to Texas have gone on strike in an effort to win higher wages and protection against automation. The strike began after the contract between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) expired on 1 July. If the work stoppage continues, the nation’s supply chain could get disrupted and any shortages could spread into the crucial holiday season
Talks have been suspended with USMX making an almost 50% wage hike, tripled retirement contributions and better healthcare – and the ILA rejecting it because it did not fulfill their demands for wage hikes and full protections against automation.
Former president Donald Trump also offered his opinion, blaming ‘the Harris-Biden regime’ for the strike, a regime, he said, that has incentivised the dockworkers and the nation with ruinous inflation. ‘The strike was caused by the massive inflation created by the Harris-Biden regime. Everybody understands the dockworkers because they were decimated by this inflation, just like everybody else in our country and beyond,’ Trump told Fox News Digital.
Dockworkers have a special reason for worrying about automation, which is that automated cranes, gates and container-moving trucks could displace their jobs. The ILA is calling for a total ban on automation, which is one of the issues holding up negotiations. ILA President Harold Daggett told FOX Business: ‘We are still willing to negotiate when the right number is reached’. He didn’t specify what ‘right number’ he had in mind.
The ports covered by the strike, which account for about half of the nation’s imports, could wreak havoc on the economy if the strike stretches to several weeks. Retailers and other industries are already bracing for shipping delays and shortages that would worsen inflation and disrupt holiday shopping. The US Chamber of Commerce called on President Joe Biden to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to prevent extended work stoppages, but Biden has refused to intervene, saying the administration won’t ‘sit down and force workers back to the table’.
A federal labour law, the Taft-Hartley Act, gives the president power to order an 80-day ‘cooling off’ period in which both sides are expected to return to work while negotiations continue. While Biden’s reluctance to administration’s broader pro-labour stance, his decision has also wrought fears that a prolonged strike could have near-record economic consequences.
The strike stands to add another logjam to an already-clogged supply chain. The US Maritime Alliance has said it remained willing to negotiate, but there is no end in sight, and US ports are in limbo.
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