After several days of US East & Gulf Coast strike – which will have cost more than US$3bn a day and which has held up many box ships, a “tentative” joint deal has been reached by the The International Longshoremens’ Association (the union) & the United States Marine Alliance (the employers).
There will be at least temporary respite until mid-January next year.
The parties have released the following statement, dated October 3rd:
“The International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance, Ltd. 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.”
Currently, there are no further confirmed details.
The general rule of thumb is that one day of strike equates to about six days of disruption. So with about four days of strike, we’re roughly looking at about 24 days of disruption or thereabouts.
With about 12.8m TEU going through ILA ports on the US East and Gulf Ports, we can easily see how such disruption would build up from even a short strike. Maritime analysts counted numerous ships being stalled off the coast of the US or nearby. They counted 54 boxships at a standstill of the US East & Gulf Coast; 10 boxships at Freeport (Bahamas); 6 in Caucedo (Domincan Republic); 10 in Kingston (Jamaica) and 19 off Cartagena (Colombia).
There were also reports of vessels waiting in Europe rather than heading across the Atlantic.
This will all take some time to resolve.
And, remember, this might all be temporary. The two sides have only done a “tentative” deal and that will only last until 15 January 2025. There remains a very serious issue to be addressed and that’s port automation.
Keep an eye on this one, especially in the run-up to January 15.
