On Tuesday, October 1st, a massive dockworker strike began to unfold at the seaports in the U.S. East and Gulf coast. This is the first strike of the International Longshoremen’s Association union in nearly half a century. This union represents about 45,000 port workers who all went on strike in a dispute over wages and automation. This strike at 14 major ports comes after talks broke down with the United States Maritime Alliance.
This strike brought concern to the American public. Even a minor disruption of a couple of days could really negatively impact certain industries like pharmaceuticals, automobiles, and manufacturing. This would have severe consequences on ships carrying billions of dollars of cargo, which would lead to the typical Americans noticing shortages of popular products such as food if this strike continues causing increases in prices due to demand.
Under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, the U.S. president has the power to suspend a strike for an 80 day “cooling off period” in cases where “national health or safety” are at risk. Under this law, Joe Biden would have no choice but to intervene and put these workers back to work. However, Biden has said that he will not enforce this law to force the union workers back to work.
The strike has already started to stress the U.S. supply chain with thousands of containers being dumped at the wrong ports, and billions of dollars in goods just anchored offshore.
Fortunately, an agreement has been reached on Thursday, October 3, 2024.
“The International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance, Ltd. have reached a tentative agreement on wages and have agreed to extend the Master Contract until January 15, 2025 to return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues,” The International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance said in a joint statement.
ILU wages will increase 61.5% over six years under the tentative agreement. Existing contracts were extended through January 15 to provide time to negotiate a new contract. Port workers will return to work on Friday.
