Representatives of two key industries have warned about the severe risks for the US economy if the increasingly sour atmosphere surrounding a simmering labour dispute leads to a full-blown work stoppage at US west coast ports.
Matt Priest, president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, said it would be “catastrophic” if the dispute — which has gone on for more than six months — led to a complete work stoppage in the already severely congested ports.
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The North American Meat Institute, which represents meat and poultry producers, warned that its members faced $30m losses per week because of the disruption to exports. A full stoppage would only worsen the problems.
Numerous sectors of the US economy have suffered severe disruption because of congestion at the ports, which has held up containers to and from Asia. The Federal Reserve noted the dispute’s disruptive effect in a report on US economic activity on January 14.
The Pacific Maritime Association, representing employers, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, representing workers, have been in fruitless negotiations for eight months over a new labour contract at ports in California, Oregon and Washington. Workers have been without a contract since the previous six-year agreement expired on July 1.
There had been hopes that the appointment earlier this month of a federal government mediator to try to resolve the dispute might produce an agreement.
But angry statements in the past week suggest it might result in either a strike or a lockout of workers by employers. A 10-day lockout in 2002 at west coast ports led to months of disruption to the US economy and forced the federal government to step in.
The PMA said on January 12 that more than two months of deliberate work slowdowns organised by the ILWU had “methodically reduced productivity”. Their action had been the sole cause of disruption at the ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Oakland and had exacerbated operational problems at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
“Operations are approaching complete gridlock,” the employers’ association said.
The ILWU immediately said the problems resulted entirely from inadequate equipment and infrastructure at the ports. It accused the employers of deliberately reducing workers’ shifts to make the position worse.
“The employer is making nonsensical moves like cutting back on shifts at a critical time, creating gridlock in a cynical attempt to turn public opinion against workers,” said Bob McEllrath, the union’s president. “This creates an incendiary atmosphere during negotiations and does nothing to get us closer to an agreement.”
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handled 41 per cent of the US’s container traffic in 2013.
Mr Priest said his members had been hopeful the dispute would already be settled.
“It has meant delays at the port, delays at the store. It has meant having to airfreight things; it has meant having to divert away from the west coast ports,” he said.
A full-blown work stoppage would be “catastrophic”, he added.
“About 40 per cent of our footwear comes through the southern California ports,” he said. “Can you imagine how disruptive that would be to the footwear market if there’s a lockout or some kind of total shutdown?”
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