Union representatives with the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) unanimously supported calls for a strike if a new collective bargaining agreement isn’t reached with the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) by September 30.
The ILA’s wage scale committee finished two days of meetings in New Jersey on September 5, where it finalized its contract demands and voiced its support for a strike if those demands aren’t met by the time the union’s current deal expires. According to The Wall Street Journal, the ILA is pushing for a 77% wage increase over the next six years, which would outpace the 32% wage bump that West Coast longshoremen agreed to in 2023. In a release sent out on September 5, the USMX asserted that its current offer includes “industry-leading wage increases,” as well as formal language that bans the use of automation at ports without both sides agreeing to terms on workforce protections.
The ILA responded in a letter to union members two days later, claiming that the USMX’s release is “nothing more than propaganda designed to mislead and divide us.” The ILA also reiterated that it “does not support any kind of automation,” and that it wants “ironclad language” in its new contract stating that the technology won’t be used at any ports in the future. Automation has been a sticking point for dockworkers throughout negotiations, with the ILA leaving the bargaining table in June after discovering that an automated system was being used to process trucks at several ports. The union has refused to restart negotiations until the USMX resolves the issue, and despite both the USMX and ILA filing for federal mediation in August, no talks are scheduled between the parties in the weeks leading up to the September 30 deadline for a new deal.
Supply chain data service Sea-Intelligence says that it would take five days to clear container backlogs at East and Gulf Coast ports if the ILA goes on strike for one day. The company also estimates that backlogs from a one-week strike starting in October wouldn’t be cleared until mid-November, while a two-week strike would push that timeline out to early 2025.
