Labor unions and container shipping lines failed to reach agreements last week needed to avoid work stoppages that could snarl retailers’ shipments heading into the critical fourth quarter.
Members of the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA) chapter representing 1,000 longshoremen at the Port of New York and New Jersey voted Tuesday to authorize a strike should the union fail to reach an agreement by Sept. 30 with the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents the shipping lines that carry the bulk of containers moving through those ports. Such a strike could effectively shut down all major East Coast and Gulf Coast container ports.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) said retailers are already rerouting goods to west coast ports to ensure they reach store shelves in time for the holidays.
“We are facing a critical time,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. “These plans carry great expense but they are necessary to avoid disruptions that will add costly delays to our members’ supply chains.”
However, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles only narrowly averted a work stoppage themselves last week after the Office Clerical Union (OCU) resumed talks with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). Those ports handle about 40 percent of the nation’s container imports.
OCU’s members have been working for a year without a contract because they can’t reach an agreement over job security with the PMA. The workers reportedly earn nearly $100,000 a year on average plus benefits for handling the extensive documentation that accompanies imports and exports. The shipping lines want to deploy software that would eliminate some of those jobs by allowing shippers to view and handle more of the paperwork electronically.
Intermittent work stoppages by OCU have not yet impacted operations at the ports, but the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union has said they will not cross picket lines should OCU strike. That could cause the PMA to lock out the ILWU and trigger a West Coast wide labor action.
