Growing lines of container ships continued to form outside major U.S. ports on Thursday as the biggest dockworker strike in nearly 50 years entered its third day.
The choke points are threatening shortages of everything from bananas to auto parts and are anticipated to grow in coming days if no resolution is forthcoming.
Reuters reports no negotiations were scheduled between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and employers, but the port owners, under pressure from the White House to hike their pay offer to land a deal, signaled they were open to new talks.
Some 45 container vessels that have been unable to unload had dropped anchor outside the strike-stricken East Coast and Gulf Coast ports by Wednesday, up from just three before the strike began on Sunday, according to Everstream Analytics.
Kia vehicles at the Port of Seattle in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. Dockworkers walked out of every major port on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts for the first time in nearly 50 years, staging a strike that could ripple across the world’s largest economy and cause political turmoil just weeks before the presidential election. (David Ryder/Bloomberg via Getty)
“Many seem to have decided to wait it out, possibly in hopes of a prompt resolution to the strike action, rather than taking the proactive decision to divert,” said Everstream’s Jena Santoro in a video presentation seen by Reuters.
As reported by Breitbart News, the ILA launched its strike by 45,000 port workers from Maine to Texas, its first major stoppage since 1977, on Tuesday after talks for a new six-year contract with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer group broke down.
The ILA is seeking a big pay raise along with commitments to halt port automation projects it fears will kill jobs. The USMX had offered a 50 percent pay bump, but the ILA said it was insufficient to address its concerns.
“Reaching an agreement will require negotiating,” USMX said late on Wednesday. “We cannot agree to preconditions to return to bargaining, but we remain committed to bargaining in good faith to address the ILA’s demands and USMX’s concerns,” it said.
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The strike, the first since 1977 for the ILA, has brought to a halt container traffic across 14 of the country’s busiest ports, including in New York, Georgia and Texas.
The ports are estimated by experts to handle more than a third of the U.S.’s imports and exports.
The ILA is described as being the “largest union of maritime workers in North America,” and represents roughly 85,000 longshoremen located along “the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Great Lakes, major U.S. rivers, Puerto Rico and Eastern Canada,” according to the union’s website.
The stoppage could cost the U.S. economy $5bn a day as the “impasse” over stalled negotiations on wages and automation drags on.