The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) current labor contract covering union members across the US East Coast and Gulf Ports, expires on September 30th, 2024. Negotiations on the conditions of the new contract are underway, but the ILA has already announced its prepared for a potential coast-wide strike if an agreement is not reached with the United States Maritime Alliance.
A coast-wide strike could be extremely detrimental to the supply chain as cargo will be heavily backlogged and the domino effect that could bring could keep shocking the entire supply chain for months after the fact.
Although all price increases we have seen since May in the US trade have been mainly felt on US Imports from the Far East and Asia, US Exports have also seen hefty price increases. For US Exports to the West coast of South America trade all major carriers including Maersk, MSC, and CMA have been announcing GRIs in their Gulf and East Coast ports calls due to main transshipment ports like Manzanillo (Panama), Freeport (Bahamas), and Cristobal (Panama) being saturated with freight and also due to the uncertainty of what will happen with ILA on October 1st. Some of these transshipment ports have no dock space to receive any more containers and carrier vessels are waiting for several days to be unloaded, prompting carriers to omit ports and continue their journey.
Ports in Brazil have extreme congestion and are having serious space issues as well, and given some Brazilian ports like Santos is a port of call on some of these vessels coming south from the US, the expected arrival of these vessels back into the United States is being delayed for several days, and some instances, a few weeks.
In the event a strike happens, Taggart International is ready to implement contingency plans to re-route cargo and offer solutions to clients. Customers are highly encouraged to send all their planning arrangements in advance to their client success manager in order to properly assess each case and mitigate the effects of a possible strike on US East Coast/Gulf Ports cargo arrivals and departures.
