Posts tagged port strike
Second US port strike averted as union, employers reach deal
January 9, 2025 // The talks had been extended until Jan. 15 to hammer a deal on automation. Shipping industry executives, customers and analysts had been concerned that the parties would be unable to overcome their impasse, leading to a second ILA strike just days before President-elect Donald Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration. A three-day ILA strike in October had triggered a surge in shipping prices and cargo backlogs at the 36 affected ports. Longshoremen returned to work after employers agreed to a 62% wage increase over the next six years.
Canada’s Labor Minister ends coast-to-coast port labor turmoil, forcing unions back to work
November 14, 2024 // Stephen Lamar, CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, told CNBC it is relieved operations will resume at Canada’s three busiest ports and hopes a long-term, mutually beneficial agreement comes out of the negotiations. “The lockouts of the Canadian ports were causing ships to divert and contributing to congestion and delays throughout North America. As Canada faces reduced rail capacity from mandatory winter train length safety restrictions, and the U.S. West Coast faces two-year high rail dwell times, further disruptions would greatly strain the transportation networks,” Lamar said.
U.S. port, union talks break down again over automation, with two months to go before potential strike
November 13, 2024 // USMX says the use of semi-automated cranes, already at many ports, is critical to future supply chain demands. The International Longshoremen's Association, which is not publicly commenting, has said in the recent past that the union wants new contract language to clearly state that "no automation means no automation."
Labor strikes shut down operations at Canada’s container ports from East to West Coast, with U.S. trade left in limbo
November 5, 2024 // Ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert are at a standstill after ILWU Local 514 walked off the job in a strike. The labor action comes on the heels of a strike at the Port of Montreal. In July 2023, 13-day strikes at these two West Coast ports impacted the delivery of U.S.-bound goods for months, from apparel to auto parts and key industrial chemicals.
The next president may face a ‘January Surprise’: Port strikes
October 31, 2024 // Pay isn’t the issue. There’s a whopping 62 percent pay increase for the ILA already on the table. The issue is that the union wants no further automation of the ports. That’s not reasonable. US ports are already far behind the international standard for automation. CEI has proposed a way to avoid these potential crises in the future: put the ports under the authority of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), as opposed to the National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA), the law that currently covers them. The RLA gives the president and Congress the power to step in and force a contract. That type of intervention isn’t ideal, but the threat of it will likely force both the union and management to reach a deal quicker. Congress would have to amend the RLA to make that happen and it isn’t likely to get around to it in time to prevent another walkout by the ILA before January.
US shippers avoid East Coast ports on risk of second strike
October 31, 2024 // "Anything we expect that we need in the back half of January, we're effectively diverting to the West Coast," said Chris Peterson, CEO of Graco high chair and Crock-Pot cooker maker Newell Brands, referring to the period after the new contract negotiating deadline. Peterson said the company switched a "couple of hundred containers" of critical materials to the opposite coast to get ahead of what he expects will be a second strike lasting, at most, two weeks.
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su Criticizes Donald Trump’s Labor Record at IOP
October 22, 2024 // Though Su declined to address the former president by name, she argued that “hypothetically,” opposition to overtime pay, sexual harassment, and support for Elon Musk are incompatible with a “pro-worker” position. “I don’t care how many McDonald’s drive-throughs you pretend to work at,” Su said, referencing Trump’s Sunday visit to a Philadelphia McDonald’s where he served fries and answered questions through the drive-through window. Su was joined by Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO to discuss the future of the American Labor Movement. Brett Story and Stephen Maing, directors of “UNION”— a documentary film that followed the unionization of Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York — were also on the panel.
With trucking at a crossroads, ATA’s Spear reminds industry what’s at stake
October 21, 2024 // The leader of trucking’s largest trade group says the industry won’t ‘roll over’ to ‘union thuggery’ and unrealistic politicians’ attempts to tear down the industry that drives the U.S. economy.
Opinion: What Buc-ee’s Can Teach Us About the Port Strike
October 12, 2024 // They care most about sheer numbers, from which both union dues and political power—and thus the leaders’ incredibly high salaries—are derived. So, they’ll fight like hell to keep the people they have, even as doing so contradicts not only the economics—and real-world lessons like Buc-ee’s—but also our current labor market reality, in which workers, not jobs, are increasingly scarce. In that world, it makes oodles of sense to embrace automation and other productivity enhancements, whether at the ports or anywhere else, and any other benefits are just the barbecue sauce on top. In the union’s world, however, the system’s working perfectly, and the government-protected sauce already flows.
Port Strike Halts: Now What? Commentary
October 9, 2024 // Even a new contract agreement, if it does not fundamentally address American port uncompetitiveness, would prove to be only a six-year punt. Legislation has been introduced to move port workers from the main National Labor Relations Act governance structure that applies to most private-sector workers to the Railway Labor Act, which governs the railroad and airline industries. This change would give Congress and the administration more power to impose a negotiated settlement and prevent strikes, but the idea has been batted around for nearly a decade.