Negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association and port operators stalled this week, raising the possibility that East Coast dockworkers could resign in January.
The US Maritime Alliance, which represents port operators and shipping companies, and the union representing about 2,400 workers at the Port of Baltimore left the negotiating table in New Jersey two days earlier after reaching an impasse over the issue of automation.
The ILA and the maritime alliance reached a tentative agreement in early October after a three-day strike that sent 45,000 dockworkers at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports back to work until January 15.
The strike marked the second time this year that port operations have been significantly disrupted after the port was largely closed for about two months following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March. When the freighter Dali struck the bridge, the span collapsed into the Patapsco River, killing six road builders and blocking the shipping channel.
In a statement on Wednesday, the ILA said talks broke down on Tuesday when port employers introduced a plan to implement ‘semi-automation’. Negotiations would last four days this week, the union said.
“The ILA has always supported modernization if it led to increased volumes and efficiency. For more than thirteen years, our position has been clear: we embrace technologies that improve safety and efficiency, but only if a human remains at the helm,” the union said in the statement. “Automation, whether full or partial, is replacing jobs and eroding the historic work functions we have worked hard to protect.”
According to the union’s statement, the tentative agreement reached in October included a 62% wage increase over six years.
In its own statement Wednesday, the US Maritime Alliance said it is not aiming to eliminate jobs with new technology, but to modernize, make workers safer and improve both efficiency and port capacity.
“Unfortunately, the ILA is pushing for an agreement that would push our industry backward by limiting the future use of technology that has existed in some of our ports for almost two decades – making it impossible to evolve to meet future supply chain demands of the country.” the alliance said.
Scott Cowan, president of Baltimore’s ILA Local 333, could not be reached for comment Friday.
Maryland Port Administration spokesman Richard Scher said that while the state agency is not directly involved in the negotiations, it is “closely monitoring” the talks and encouraging both sides to make progress toward a final agreement.
The Maryland Port Administration owns Baltimore’s main freight terminals, but private companies operate them.
“While both sides have met and made progress toward a deal, significant work is still needed to reach a new contract that satisfies both sides,” Scher said in a statement. “We remain hopeful that an agreement will be reached before the January deadline.”
A strike at the port would have serious consequences for the economy both in Maryland and across the country, experts say. After just a few days, a work stoppage at ports along the East Coast could lead to shortages of goods from abroad.
Tinglong Dai, the Bernard T. Ferrari Professor of Business Administration at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, told The Baltimore Sun in October that if workers were to strike for more than a week, consumers could see shortages of perishables such as bananas, which are generally are shipped to the US from Central America. A longer strike could impact other sectors such as car sales, he said.
(Baltimore Sun reporter Lorraine Mirabella contributed to this article.)
