U.S. port strike ends, operations to start soon

The three-day strike across U.S. East Coast ports was called off after a tentative agreement was reached between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX).

The agreement extends the Master Contract until January 15, 2025, and both ILA and USMX have agreed 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," says a joint official statement.

The Georgia Ports Authority has issued a customer advisory, saying "operations will resume Friday morning, October 4, with truck gates at 0600 hrs at Garden City Terminal and 0800 hrs Ocean Terminal. In addition to gates, vessel operations will begin between 0800 – 1300 hrs and rail operations start at 0700 hrs."

Tentative deal includes a 62 percent wage hike over six years, Reuters reported. "That would raise average wages to about $63 an hour from $39 an hour over the life of the contract."

USMX had earlier raised its offer to a nearly 50 percent hike, which was summarily dismissed by ILA, which started the strike by 45,000 port workers, its first major work stoppage since 1977.

"The deal ends the biggest work stoppage of its kind in nearly half a century, which blocked unloading of container ships from Maine to Texas and threatened shortages of everything from bananas to auto parts, triggering a backlog of anchored ships outside major ports," the Reuters report added.

U.S. President Joe Biden applauded the ILA and USMX "for coming together to reopen the East Coast and Gulf ports. Today’s tentative agreement on a record wage and an extension of the collective bargaining process represents critical progress towards a strong contract. I congratulate the dockworkers from the ILA, who deserve a strong contract after sacrificing so much to keep our ports open during the pandemic. And I applaud the port operators and carriers who are members of the US Maritime Alliance for working hard and putting a strong offer on the table.

"I want to thank the union workers, the carriers, and the port operators for acting patriotically to reopen our ports and ensure the availability of critical supplies for Hurricane Helene recovery and rebuilding. Collective bargaining works, and it is critical to building a stronger economy from the middle out and the bottom up."

Backlog
Ports previously on strike handle approximately 56 percent of containerised imports and 68 percent of containerised exports to and from the U.S., according to an update from Scan Global Logistics.

"At the time of this writing, at least 50 containerships have been recorded as being anchored at offshore locations, unable to berth at any of the three dozen ports affected by the ILA strike."

"Beginning today, these vessels will begin to berth in the order they arrived."

The backlog and subsequent congestion are expected to be a factor for at least the remainder of the month, the update added.

Force Majeure
A number of carriers, including CMA-CGM and ONE Lines, have declared force majeure, Scan Global added. "This announcement does not include defined plans for cargo en-route or in transit but placemarks and validates the action should the decision to terminate cargo at alternate discharge locations be reached.

"We are working closely with carrier lines on possibly affected cargo with the intent to have all bookings completed to their original final destination."