How a massive port worker strike could scramble the 2024 race
A lengthy work stoppage could drive up prices and delay imports of automobiles, bananas and even Christmas decorations.
By Sam Sutton
Politico
Sep 27, 2024
Ports that could be impacted by a strike span from New York to Houston, representing more than half of the country’s overall port capacity.
Ports along the East and Gulf coasts are on the verge of a dockworkers strike that could damage the U.S. economy just a month before the election — creating a political quandary for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Intervening to stop the strike — as Biden did two years ago to prevent rail workers from walking off the job — could sour labor voters on Harris, who is trying to shore up support from blue-collar workers who could decide the election in critical swing states. But allowing a lengthy work stoppage could unleash pain on consumers, driving up prices and delaying imports of automobiles, bananas and even Christmas decorations.
A strike could begin as soon as Tuesday if the International Longshoremen’s Association doesn’t reach a deal with the alliance of companies that operate at more than a dozen major ports along the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast. The two sides are nowhere near an agreement.
The president of the 132-year-old union, erstwhile Biden ally Harold Daggett, said he’s willing to push the economy past its breaking point if the United States Maritime Alliance doesn’t agree to substantial wage hikes and safeguards against the automation of union jobs.
The White House has said that Biden will not use his executive powers to halt any ILA strike.
“My advice is to stay out of it,” said Marty Walsh, the former Boston mayor and Labor Secretary who helped lead the Biden administration’s response to the 2022 freight rail labor dispute. “You don’t have to get involved until both sides ask. Encourage both sides to stay in conversation.”
Other Democrats made their angst plain.
“We gotta find a deal,” said Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat whose state is home to one of the largest ports on the East Coast. “I’m not gonna give ‘em advice about how to do it, but it would be a bad thing for Virginia and for the country to have a strike.”
White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said Biden is encouraging “all parties to come to the bargaining table.” Senior officials from the White House, Labor Department and Transportation Departmetn are delivering that message to the union and USMX members “directly on being at the table and negotiating in good faith fairly and quickly,” she added.
For Harris, the labor dispute will force her to square pro-union stances with the business-friendly economic agenda she’s unveiled since taking over the Democratic presidential race. The vice president has been endorsed by most major private sector unions but has faced resistance among some rank-and-file members, as well as the Teamsters’ national leadership.
Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, would have a chance to exploit whatever economic havoc a strike creates, furthering his message that the Biden-era has saddled consumers with high prices and supply-chain misery. Democrats could try to use Trump’s track record on labor policy — along with his recent comments to Elon Musk about firing striking workers — to blunt his attempts to curry favor with working class voters.
The Harris and Trump campaigns declined to comment.
The actual economic pain that could be inflicted by an ILA strike is difficult to calculate and would depend on its length.
The affected ports span from New York to Houston and manage more than half of the country’s port capacity, according to the Mitre Corporation. The cargo includes weekly volumes of agricultural imports and exports that are worth around $1.4 billion, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Analysts from JPMorgan have estimated the costs of strike-related closures could climb as high as $5 billion per day, while the shipping container marketplace Container xChange has pegged the daily economic toll at around $1 billion. Maersk has already announced disruption surcharges for cargo that’s moving in and out of terminals on the East and Gulf coasts.
The degree to which those costs are passed along to consumers will depend not only on shipping delay costs, but also the existing inventories at retailers, said Seth Harris, a former acting labor secretary under former President Barack Obama who went on to advise the Biden White House on economic policy. In a recent research note, JPMorgan Chase analysts said that companies have been pulling forward shipments ahead of the potential disruption and diverting cargo to West Coast ports that wouldn’t be impacted by the strike.
Seth Harris said he didn’t expect prices to climb quickly “unless there is price gouging, and that could very well serve the Vice President’s interests, because that is a central part of her” economic messaging, he told POLITICO.
Still, the economic disruptions caused by a protracted strike would invariably raise difficult questions about how Harris and Trump would respond in similar circumstances.
While Harris has long had the support of labor groups — she helmed a White House task force on organizing and walked a picket line with Nevada autoworkers in 2019 — her presidential campaign has sought to bolster appeal among working class voters in the Rust Belt, where the race is likely to be decided. She is opposed to Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel, held campaign events at Midwest union halls and recently told the Economic Club of Pittsburgh that she has “always been and always will be a strong supporter of workers and unions.”
But her campaign has also courted major donors in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street who’ve been hostile to Biden administration regulators who’ve used their authority to extend workplace protections. If the ILA strikes, it could compel her to clarify the “real, specific ties” she has to pro-labor efforts, personnel and policies, said Alí Bustamante, the director of the worker power and economic security program at the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank.
An ILA strike could accelerate the timeline for when she has to “make a lot of these critical choices that are going to provide a lot of signal to the labor community,” he said.
Trump allies expect the former president to leverage the work stoppage to extend his outreach to union voters. Notably, Daggett — who endorsed Biden in 2020 — earlier this summer said that he had a “productive” 90-minute meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in late 2023 and that he enjoys a “long relationship” with the former president.
An ILA strike “will give voters, particularly union voters, yet another reason to want a historically successful dealmaker back in the White House,” said Jonathan Berry, a former top Labor Department official under Trump who is now managing partner at the law firm Boyden Gray.
Of course, Trump’s track record on organized labor issues is a target-rich environment for Democrats looking to elevate Harris’ standing with unionized workers. While his protectionist trade and manufacturing policies have helped him chip away at the Democratic Party’s hold on blue collar workers, his first term agenda limited the ability of workers to organize.
The ILA strike could arrive a little more than six weeks after he discussed firing striking workers in a wide-ranging interview with Musk, who the former president says could have a role in his next administration.
Public opinion of unions is as high as it has been since the mid-1960s, according to Gallup. If Trump signals that Biden and Harris should intervene in an ILA strike to preserve supply chains, it could weaken whatever grip he has on conservative union voters.
“Trump ran the most vehemently anti-union administration that we’ve seen,” said Steve Rosenthal, a strategist and former political director for the AFL-CIO. “The contrast is clear.”
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