Dockworkers across the East Coast and the Gulf Coast could go on strike next Wednesday, and that strike could have massive impacts on Louisiana workers, farmers, and consumers.
The International Longshoremen's Association says it will go on strike if they don't get better pay and better job protection from automation. It would be the first national dockworker strike since 1977. If the union and its members follow through with their threat to strike, the work stoppage could create supply chain issues similar to what the United States experienced during the height of the COVID pandemic.
"All those supplies that are either going into the country or out of the country are going to be sitting in these ships or sitting on the docks waiting to be loaded and backing up," UNO economist Walter "Dub" Lane said to WWL's Tommy Tucker. "The supply chains across the country got messed up. People couldn't get supplies. They couldn't get materials. Things of that sort."
Lane told WWL's Tommy Tucker that a dockworkers strike would put others who work in the shipping industry at risk of losing their jobs.
"If they can't unload the steamships, then the truckers don't need to have a job," Lane said, adding that the strike will also threat American agriculture. "If that grain all starts getting backed up and we're not going to be able to ship that out, that's going to hurt the farms all up the middle of the country."
According to Lane, one a potential strike ends, it will take time for the American shipping industry and economy to rebound from the work stoppage.
"For any one day the docks are shut down--these big container ships--it could take five days to fix the problem," Lane said.
