As of 5am ET on Friday, strike action by the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) was suspended. Following a collapse in negotiations, the strike ultimately came to an end after a fresh offer by the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer body included a 62 percent wage increase over six years.
”The ILA and the USMX have reached a tentative agreement on wages and have agreed to extend the master contract until January 15, 2025, to return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues. Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume,” a joint statement by both organisations said.
At the time of the suspension following three days of ports across the USA East and Gulf Coast, 44 ships were queuing to enter affected ports and more than 120 en route.
The ILA said it would not accept the wage proposal “immediately” as this would require them to sign a no-strike clause which would prevent negotiations on further issues such as jurisdiction, automation, healthcare and container royalty. The union said it plans to meet with the employers’ body “as soon as possible” to resolve these outstanding concerns.
Due to the short length of the strike, the losses were not critical. Shippers had been prepared and rushed to move their goods through the ports ahead of the 12:01 am Tuesday when the strike began.
Peter Sand, Xeneta chief analyst, said: “A prolonged crisis on this scale would have been toxic for global supply chains so the market is breathing a sigh of relief.“
He added: ”Closing all ports on the US East Coast and Gulf Coast, even for just three days, comes with severe consequences. We must now wait to see how quickly the returning workers are able and willing to deal with the huge backlog of ships waiting to offload thousands of containers carrying billions of dollars of goods.”
While the impact has so far been limited, Sand believes the ripple effect of the strike will likely cascade throughout global supply chains in the coming weeks.
“The dozens of ships delayed on the US East Coast and Gulf Coast will also be late arriving back in the Far East. This will impact schedules towards the end of this year and possibly into 2025 in the run-up to Lunar New Year at the end of January, which traditionally sees an increase in goods shipped out of the Far East… You cannot miss a scheduled weekly sailing for a ship carrying 15,000 containers and not expect repercussions for carriers and importers.”
According to Freightos, port authority officials in New York liken the short closure to that experienced during winter storms and think operations could return to normal in a matter of days.
Despite potential problems and the discussion over automation remaining, port operations have now resumed and a sense of normalcy all but restored. The Georgia Port Authority confirmed that operations resumed on Friday morning, October 4 with truck gates at 0600 hrs at Garden City Terminal and 0800 hrs Ocean Terminal.
