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Early Tuesday morning, U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers began their first large-scale strike in over 50 years, stopping the flow of half of the country’s ocean shipping after negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) were unsuccessful.
The ILA, which represents over 45,000 port workers, had been negotiating for a new six-year contract, looking to improve pay and terminal automation project issues and were unsuccessful after the USMX’s final proposal fell “far short of the demands of its members” according to Reuters.
The strike halts shipments at 36 ports from Maine to Texas and could cost the economy an estimated $5 billion per day.
What Products Will Be Affected?
With around half of the U.S. ocean imports flowing through East Coast ports, many products coming from the European Union, Asia and Africa may be affected by the strike. Those products include:
- Electronics
- Pharmaceuticals
- Automotive parts
- Machinery parts
The Home Depot is among other top U.S. retailers that will be affected by the port strike as it imported 21,200 containers in from September 2023 to 2024.
National Retail Federation president and CEO Matthew Shay released a statement regarding the strike, urging President Joe Biden to end the strike, including invoking the use of the Taft-Hartley Act.
The Taft-Hartley Act, enacted in 1947, was passed with the intent to protect employee rights by unfair practices by labor unions. The law authorizes a president to seek a court order for an 80-day cooling-off period for companies and unions to attempt to resolve their issues.
President Biden said on Wednesday he would not consider invoking the act to break the strike, according to Reuters.
“A disruption of this scale during this pivotal moment in our nation’s economic recovery will have devastating consequences for American workers, their families and local communities,” Shay says. “After more than two years of runaway inflationary pressures and in the midst of recovery from Hurricane Helene, this strike will result in further hardship for American families.”
