Continued Risk Of US East Coast Port Strike

Negotiations to finalise master contracts for port workers on the US East and Gulf coasts have broken down again, as the risk of a January strike heightens.

October’s strike was suspended after just three days when a tentative agreement on wages was reached. Workers agreed to go back to work until January 15th, while the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) negotiated “all other outstanding issues”.

However, talks were put on ice between the two parties last week due to a disagreement on port automation. A USMX spokesperson said “While we had positive progress on a number of issues, we were unable to make significant progress on our discussions that focused on a range of technology issues.”

The ILA opposes any kind of automation, or even semi-automation, believing that this would result in job losses, while USMX say that modernisation is needed for safety and efficiency and will not necessarily mean cutting jobs.

According to USMX “the ILA is insisting on an agreement that would move our industry backward by restricting future use of technology that has existed in some of our ports for nearly two decades – making it impossible to evolve to meet the nation’s future supply chain demands.”

While the two parties are expected to resume talks before January’s deadline, there are currently fears that we are heading for another strike in the new year, which could start ahead of President Trump taking office on January 20th.