Montana Economist on How the Dock Strike Could Affect Imports

UPDATE 10/4/24 6:27am: Multiple national news outlets are reporting the dock workers strike has ended.

Original Story

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The East and Gulf Coast dock workers strike is in its second day, and experts say it could lead to one of the nation's most contentious labor issues in many years.

I spoke with Dr. Patrick Barkey, the now-former Director of the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research about the strike.

Dr. Barkey Said There are Hopeful Signs About the Dock Workers Strike

“On the East Coast I think there are some reasons for some concern, and there are also reasons for perhaps not sounding all of the alarm bells,” began Dr. Barkey. “The concern, of course, is that the East Coast ports, which are directly impacted, account for about 40 percent of our import and export activity, primarily imports, so losing that would be tough.”

Barkey said there is a bit of good news regarding the dock worker's strike.

“The good news, if there is any good news, is that this is not a total surprise to the shippers and wholesalers and so forth,” he said. “Because of that, a lot of the mission-critical kinds of things have been built up in stockpile, to the extent that's possible, so that should mitigate at least the short-run impacts of this outage.”

Barkey Said the President Has the Power to Order Workers Back on the Job

Dr. Barkey said the President of the United States does have special powers to force striking workers back on the job.

“I think another reason to be less than totally alarmed about it is the fact that we're one month away from an election, and even though the President says there's a lot of rhetoric about supporting unions and how companies should meet their demands, etc, I think the reality is it would be very bad politically to refrain from invoking the power that the President has to force workers back to work while negotiations continue,” he said.

Barkey referenced what is commonly called ‘The Taft Hartley Act’ that can be invoked in times of labor unrest.

Dock Workers are Primarily Concerned About Automation and Wages

“It's something called the Taft Hartley Act,” he said. “The President can mandate workers to return to their posts for 80 days during a period of time when negotiations continue. So it's something that is there. Everybody knows he has the power to do that, and so I think the pressure to do that if the disruptions prove to be serious, I think will be very, very difficult to resist, particularly since his own vice president is running for reelection. The Presidential election is happening in a month, as we all know.”

According to CNN, "The motivation for the strike revolves around two issues, automation and wages. The unions are deeply opposed to the increasing use of cranes and driverless trucks to move goods from the container ships. Unions are also demanding a $5 per hour increase in wages over the next six years of their contract, for a pay increase of 77 percent."