Union leaders representing striking longshoremen said major U.S. ports will remain closed until their wage demands are met.
Harold Daggett, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), swore on a picket line in New Jersey on Tuesday as tens of thousands of longshoremen on the Eastern and Gulf Coasts walked out to win a better collective bargaining agreement. .
“If we don’t fight for this and win, this port will never open again,” he said. “I’m not playing games here.”
Businesses are bracing for the possibility of extended port closures, which could wreak havoc on global trade and the U.S. economy.
President Joe Biden has so far rejected calls from some of the nation’s largest business groups to call off the strike and use federal authority to reopen ports for 80 days to provide a cooling period for further negotiations. is refusing.
“It stands to reason that the workers who are putting themselves at risk to keep our ports open during this pandemic should also see significant wage increases,” Biden said.
“Now is not the time for shipping companies to earn record profits while refusing to negotiate fair wages for these essential workers.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump also supported the longshoremen’s strike.
“American workers should be able to negotiate better wages, especially at shipping lines where most of the vessels are foreign-flagged,” he said in a statement.
The strike, ILA’s first since 1977, halted container shipping at 14 of the nation’s busiest ports, including New York, Georgia and Texas.
Experts estimate that these ports handle more than a third of U.S. imports and exports. Disruptions could result in delays in the delivery of goods to businesses and consumers.
The president said authorities will be on the lookout for signs of unreasonable price increases in the event of a potential shortage.
Talks on a new agreement had been stalled for months before the strike, but the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents shipping lines and port associations, said the two sides had begun exchanging proposals again.
Under the 2018 contract, which expired on Monday, longshoremen earned a base wage of $20 to $39 an hour, as well as royalties and other benefits for shipping containers.
USMX said its latest proposal would raise salaries by nearly 50%, triple company contributions to retirement benefits, improve health care and other concessions.
The group said the proposal exceeds “all recent union settlements” and that the current conflict is “completely inevitable.”
“We look forward to hearing from the union on how we can get back to the table and actually negotiate. That’s the only way to reach a solution,” the union said.
But the ILA’s Mr Daggett said there had been “nothing” so far to unite unions and businesses to end the strike.
He said he was prepared to keep the ports closed until companies agreed to raise wages by $5 an hour for each contract period. The union, which has about 47,000 active members, also wants protections against automation, according to federal filings.
“Greedy corporations are making billions of dollars and don’t want to share, so I’m going to fight for that,” he said. “I want our members to be taken care of for the rest of their lives, and that’s why we’re here.”
A prolonged outage would lead to higher prices and shortages in the U.S., with shipping delays and other impacts expected to spread around the world.
Anne-Sophie Fribourg, vice president of Zencargo, a freight forwarding company that arranges shipments for exporters and importers, said: “Right now we are seeing ships anchored outside the port, waiting to see what happens.” “I’ll be able to do it,” he said.
“If the strike lasts longer, the disruption will be large-scale,” she said.
Hamid Moghaddam, chief executive of Prologis, one of the world’s largest warehouse companies and owner of Amazon and other companies, said the strike was not a shock but would “still” hurt the economy.
“It will disrupt the proper functioning of the flow of goods,” he told the BBC.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says 100,000 containers are already stuck in the New York area waiting to be unloaded, and 35 more ships are expected to arrive this week.
Danny Reynolds, owner of Stevenson’s, a 93-year-old clothing store in Elkhart, Indiana, said he paid extra to have sweaters and coats shipped domestically ahead of the strike.
However, about 25% of the inventory has not yet arrived and is now being unloaded. She said her biggest concern is how long it will take to deliver custom-made bridal dresses for weddings in November and December.
“What we’re concerned about is that the items we custom order for people’s weddings might get stuck on the ship and never get to us. It’s hard to explain that to potential brides. That’s the thing,” he said.
About 75% of his goods go through East Coast ports, he added. He explained that although he expects his business to function until the end of the year, he is concerned about the broader impact.
“This could have devastating consequences for the economy,” he suggested, adding that he would like to see the president intervene.
“Honestly, I think it’s overdue for the Biden administration to sit down at the table with them and see what can be done to get things back on track.”